Newman 1025.

Inscribed by author: "Gerry and Family [?]. All the best - Rewi, Peking - 23-2-66."


In 1916 Alley joined the New Zealand Army and was sent to serve in France. While there he met some Chinese men who had been sent to work for the Allied Armies. During the war he was injured and caught in no man's land. Lyall McCallum and another man rescued him and took him back to safety.

Rewi Alley, QSO, (2 December 1897 - 27 December 1987), was a New Zealand-born writer, educator, social reformer, potter, and member of the Communist Party of China.

Rewi Alley was a prolific western writer about 20th century China, and especially about the Communist revolution. He dedicated 60 years of his life to the cause of the Communist Party of China, and was a key figure in the establishment of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, and technical training schools, including the Peili Vocational Institute in Beijing...

In 1916 Alley joined the New Zealand Army and was sent to serve in France. While there he met some Chinese men who had been sent to work for the Allied Armies. During the war he was injured and caught in no man's land. Lyall McCallum and another man rescued him and took him back to safety. After the war, Alley tried farming in New Zealand. In 1927 he decided to go to China. He moved to Shanghai with thoughts of joining the Shanghai Municipal Police, but instead he became a fireman. During this period he gradually became aware of the poverty in the Chinese community and the racism in the Western communities. His politics turned from fairly conventional right-wing pro-Empire sentiments to thoughts of social reform. In particular a famine in 1929 made him aware of the plight of China's peasants. Using his holidays and taking time off work Alley toured rural China helping with relief efforts. He adopted a 14-year-old Chinese boy in 1929, whom he named Alan.

After a brief visit to New Zealand, where Alan experienced public racism, Alley became Chief Factory Inspector for the Shanghai Municipal Council in 1932. By this time he was a secret member of the Communist Party of China and was involved in criminal activities on behalf of the Party. At one time he was given the job of washing the blood off money stolen by the Red Army in raids disguised as anti-Japanese protests. He adopted another Chinese son, Mike, in 1932. After the outbreak of war with Japan in 1937, Alley set up the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives. He also set up schools, calling them Bailie Schools after his American friend Joseph Bailie. Edgar Snow wrote of Alley's work in CIC: "Where Lawrence brought to the Arabs the distinctive technique of guerilla war, Alley was to bring China the constructive technique of guerilla industry...." [1] In 1945, he became headmaster of the Shandan Bailie School following the death of George Hogg...
-- Wikipedia