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Continuing Research Into Wm K Rockman History


Seele

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Quite some time ago I made two posts on the early history of the firm Wm K Rockman Inc, originally in NYC, then Shanghai, and finally in Changsu, which became known as Guanleming since some time in the 1970s. They were written with all the information I could find, and unfortunately they had more than a few mistakes.

 

The problem with later information online is that they copied each other without any verification: what I realized early on was that many Chinese websites, ostensibly full of information, have their contents lifted from others. I fully expected my articles were far from mistake free, but with the generous help from fellow correspondent Tefolium, a quantity of contemporary documents were discovered which proved my articles to be wrong in several aspects.

 

One of the points I can divulge here is the assertion that the firm's founder named it after his son, which was shown to be false. Here's my conjecture:

 

The founder's name, when romanized in pinyin, is "Guan", but at the time it was "Kwan". It was a normal practice for Chinese people at the time to have alternate given names, and he mainly used two: one that's romanized in pinyin as "leming" and the other "Weilin", but the latter could have been rendered as "Waillam" or "William". When he arrived in the US, he had to have his name romanized, and for some reason he wanted to use both, so in pinyin (which was not yet invented at the time) it turned out to be "Weilin Guan leming" but at the time, it was "William Kwan Rockman". "William" was abbreviated to "Wm", and "Kwan" turned into his middle name and became the "K", thus "Wm K Rockman" so the individual who took out the 1925 and 1926 US patents was definitely him. The company name in Chinese in the pinyin system would be "Guanleming" which stayed right through its existence though, but for most of its existence the English name was always Wm K Rockman Inc.

 

Using sources from the early 1930s, especially interviews and biographical accounts, he was older than first thought, born in 1873 instead of 1881 as claimed in later sources.

 

The very unusual situation of his son (born 1893) inherited his Chinese name "leming" or "Rockman" can be explained like this: in the US his last name was indeed Rockman so the word was in his son's name regardless, In the early days he used both his Chinese first names interchangeably; in trade directories he used that which rendered as "William" as General Manager, while another - his son - was listed as "leming/Rockman" as Engineer. In that sense he stopped using one of his first names and gave it to his son, but the two Rockmans continue to cause some confusion on my part. In the only bi-lingual Shanghai trade directory we can find so far, dated 1933, the entry under Wm K Rockman Inc listed "Kwan, Wm" as General Manager, and "Kwan, Rockman" as Engineer (along with "Kan, Hanwe" as Business Manager.

 

If Rockman jr was born in the US, he would have been given another first name: "Rockman Kwan Rockman" would not make a lot of sense, but if he was born in China then there would have been no need for his father to give him one of his first names anyway.

 

Further research into the US archives would be most helpful to track down the early years of the firm including its founding years in NYC. On top of company registration (first incorporated in 1926), immigration records, birth records etc would also be most helpful; I hope some fellow members in the US would be able to do the detective work required.

post-88631-0-17921800-1541554220.jpg

Edited by Seele

No, I am not going to list my pens here.

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According to word o mouth history account , Mr. Kwan Wm, the founder actually name the company after his nephew, not his son, and that his nephew is part of the team who help him establish the business and work on the well engineering side. Its actually in text as the company history during the time GLM is active on the market

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According to word o mouth history account , Mr. Kwan Wm, the founder actually name the company after his nephew, not his son, and that his nephew is part of the team who help him establish the business and work on the well engineering side. Its actually in text as the company history during the time GLM is active on the market

nephew?!

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an article on weibo mentioned that wmkr celebrated the birth of the factory on 1948.10.10

Edited by Tefolium
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