"B" Company, British, Lineal Descendants of the First Shanghai Volunteers "B Company, British, have crest of a bee on a shield, supported by a pair of crossed' rifles with bayonets fixed, with the date "April 4, 18547 and the motto Always Ready." It is a fine motto, fully justified by the Company's record and "B" Company could as justly add the heraldic translation of There before any of you." Were it not that a proud Scottish Regiment would sue them for theft, they might call themselves Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard," for that is the name by which the aforesaid doughty Scots proclaim themselves to the world as the oldest uniformed regiment in existence.
"Aa" Gompany, British, claim they go back to the beginning of things military in Shanghai through associations with No, 1 Company and the Mih-ho-loong Rifles and the eventual amalgamation of the two. Whereat "B' Company elevate their heads and produce records of 1878, when, the loca! Chinese having refused for several years to do anything which might introduce them to the £.¥.C., the members of the latter had grown so slack that re-organizations, dis bandments and—_ amalgamation< were going on with almost every unit. Some of the ancients ever state that every officer of the Corps resigned, save those of No. 9 Company and it is recorded in the Municipal Council's report of that year: No. 2 Company:—Re mains without change, the officer: still retaining their appointments." As this Company subsequently be came "B" Company, British, with out any break, the claim to the longest straight record of service would seem to be well established In_ these circumstances it it creatly to be regretted that the Company's records have not beer more carefully preserved. Only those of comparatively recent times have been discovered and there is little that can be told of the early days. §.V.C. records show that there was a No. 2 Company atthe formation of the Corps, but the earliest officer we have been able definitely to establish is Captain J. A. Harvie, who was O. C. in 1879 and the indications are that he had then been handling the Company for several years.
As this was about the time the other un were re-organizing, whilst No. 2 Company were having no troubles, one may assume that Capt. Harvie was possibly the ideal officer, with the knack of running a Company. This is strengthened by the knowledge that he was still in command in 1884, when Col. Trueman first joined the S.V.C.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.