Shanghai International Settlement

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The Shanghai Municipal Council (工部局, literally "Works Department", from the standard English local government title of 'Board of works') was the governing body which administered the combined British and American foreign concessions in Shanghai, known as the Shanghai International Settlement (上海公共租界). It was established in 1854 to reorganise the existing concessions. Wholly foreign-controlled, the council was staffed by individuals of all nationalities, including Britons, Americans, New Zealanders, Australians, Danes and Japanese. Chinese members were not permitted to join the council until 1928.

Representing a wide spectrum of nations, the Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC) along with the foreign residents of the International Settlement recreated the architecture and institutions of their homelands in Shanghai. It maintained its own police force, and even possessed its own military reserve in the Shanghai Volunteer Corps (萬國商團). The immense presence of the council and the settlement's foreign residents can still be seen throughout present day Shanghai, most notably the architecture of The Bund.

Amongst the many members who served on the council, its American chairman during the 1920's, Stirling Fessenden, is the most notable. In addition to serving as the settlement's main administrator during Shanghai's most turbulent era, he was also remembered for being more "British" than the council's British members. The International Settlement was not a British possession, unlike its neighbor, the French Concession, which was formally part of the French colonial empire, under the direction initially of the Governor-General of Indo-China. Thus the SMC excercised a considerable degree of political autonomy, not always wisely. Actions in the 1920s in particular, such as the May 30, 1925 shooting of Chinese demonstrators by members of the Shanghai Municipal Police, embarrassed and threated the British Empire's position in China.

Over the years a large number of Chinese took up residency at the International Settlement, either to escape civil conflict, or to seek better economic opportunities. In 1932 there were already 1,040,780 Chinese living within the International Settlement, with another 400,000 fleeing into the area after the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937. Moreover, Shanghai was for a time the only place in the world that unconditionally offered refuge for Jews who were escaping from the Nazis, although they often lived in squalid conditions in an area known as the Shanghai ghetto.

The Council was formally abolished twice. In July 1943 it was retroceded to the City Government of Shanghai, then in the hands of the pro-Japanese Wang Jingwei Government, by its then Japanese leaders on the Council. Anglo-American influence had effectively ended after 8 December 1941, when the Imperial Japanese Army entered and occupied the city. Although senior Allied personnel and councillors were removed from their posts, most Allied nationals working for the administration remained in their jobs until they were interned after February 1943. The Settlement was also returned to Chinese control in the Sino-British Friendship Treaty of February 1943 between Britain and the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek. After the war a Liquidation Commission fitfully met to discuss the remaining details of the handover. The Council's headquarters building still stands in downtown Shanghai.

After 1949, city government was re-instated under the Mayor of Shanghai.