Cornell Sidney Franklin (1892–1959) was an American lawyer and judge and also served as the chairman of the

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

Municipal Council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counci ...

from 1937 to 1940.

Early life

Franklin was born April 1, 1892, in

Columbus, Mississippi Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Lowndes County, on the eastern border of Mississippi, United States, located primarily east, but also north and northeast of the Tombigbee River, which is also part of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterwa ...

, United States. He was the son of Cornell Samuel and Mary Wycoff (Taylor) Franklin. He was educated at the Franklin Academy from which he graduated in 1909 and the

University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi (byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment. ...

where he obtained a BA in 1913 and an

LLB Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the China, People's Republic ...

in 1914.Franklin's entry in Men of Shanghai and North China.

Legal Practice in Hawaii

Franklin practiced law in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

from 1914 to 1917. He then served as an assistant

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

of Hawaii from 1917 to 1918. In 1919, he was appointed First Judge of the First Judicial Circuit of Hawaii and served in that position until 1921 when he moved to

Shanghai

Franklin arrived in Shanghai on December 31, 1921, and commenced practice of law before the

United States Court for China The United States Court for China was a United States district court that had extraterritorial jurisdiction over U.S. citizens in China. It existed from 1906 to 1943 and had jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters, with appeals taken to the U ...

. In the 1920s he was in partnership with Walter Chalaire. After Chalaire returned to America, from 1928 he served as the senior member of the firm Fleming, Franklin & Allman). A claim by Chalaire against Franklin was heard in the

for the agreed price of the sale of the firm. Franklin won in Shanghai but lost on appeal to the

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * District ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. In 1933, Franklin was elected a member of

Shanghai Municipal Council The Shanghai International Settlement () originated from the merger in the year 1863 of the British Concession (Shanghai), British and American Concession (Shanghai), American list of former foreign enclaves in China, enclaves in Shanghai, i ...

. In 1937 he was elected Chairman of the Council and served in that position for three years.The First Citizen of Shanghai, The Scroll of Phi Delta Theta, December 1937, Vol 62, No.2 1938 Cornell Franklin takes SVC salute

After the

Japanese invasion of China The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Thea ...

in 1937, the

Shanghai International Settlement The Shanghai International Settlement () originated from the merger in the year 1863 of the British and American enclaves in Shanghai, in which British subjects and American citizens would enjoy extraterritoriality and consular jurisdiction ...

was encircled by Japanese troops. Franklin along with the Secretary General of the Council, Stirling Fessenden were involved with a number of negotiations with the Japanese to maintain the independence of the International Settlement. Teia maru

Franklin was interned by the Japanese during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

; early in the morning of November 5, 1942, he was arrested by officers of the ''

Kempeitai The , also known as Kempeitai, was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945 that also served as a secret police force. In addition, in Japanese-occupied territories, the Kenpeitai arrested or killed those suspecte ...

'' and held in the Haiphong Road Camp in Shanghai. He was repatriated from Shanghai in September, 1943 on the Japanese ship ''

Teia Maru MS ''Aramis'' was built for France's '' Messageries Maritimes'' for the France-Southeast Asia colonial route. One of her distinguishing features was that her funnels were square-shaped. She was built to carry 1,045 civilian passengers in first, ...

'' as part of the 1943 prisoner exchange. He returned to America on board the MS ''Gripsholm'' with other Americans after transferring in a

Goa Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to the ...

, India, then a Portuguese colony and a neutral port. He returned to Shanghai after the war and resumed practice as a lawyer in partnership with Robert T Bryant, the former Shanghai Municipal Advocate. By this time

extraterritoriality In international law, extraterritoriality is the state of being exempted from the jurisdiction of local law, usually as the result of diplomatic negotiations. Historically, this primarily applied to individuals, as jurisdiction was usually cla ...

had come to an end and the

no longer existed. Franklin stayed on after the

Chinese Communist Revolution The Chinese Communist Revolution, officially known as the Chinese People's War of Liberation in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and also known as the National Protection War against the Communist Rebellion in the Republic of China (ROC ...

and was granted an exit visa in 1951. (Bryan was imprisoned for 18 months as a spy before being released via Hong Kong in 1952)

Marriages and children

Franklin married Estelle Oldham in April, 1918, and they had two children, Victoria and Malcom. Estelle left Shanghai in 1926 and divorced Franklin. She remarried in 1929 to the American writer, and later

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

winner,

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of ...

. Faulkner had courted Estelle before she married Franklin. Franklin remarried in 1929 to Dallas Chesterman Lee in Shanghai with whom he had two sons, Cornell Swinton who was born on 16 March 1931 and died as an infant on 31 March 1931 and Cornell Jr. "Corney" Franklin born on 3 October 1933 at 200 Jordan Avenue Shanghai. Notably, Victoria received a present from William Faulkner, '' The Wishing Tree'', his only book written for children.

Military service

Franklin was a First Lieutenant of the US Army Infantry from 1918 to 1919 during World War I in Hawaii. He was one of the three organisers of the American Troop of the

Shanghai Volunteer Corps The Shanghai Volunteer Corps (SVC) (1853−1942) was a multinational, mostly volunteer force controlled by the Shanghai Municipal Council which governed the Shanghai International Settlement. History The Shanghai Volunteer Corps was created on 1 ...

and served as a First Lieutenant of the Corps.

Death

Franklin died in February 1959, in Charlottesville, Virginia.Niagara Falls Gazette, Feb 25, 1959, p20 He was buried in the

Friendship Cemetery Friendship Cemetery is a cemetery located in Columbus, Mississippi. In 1849, the cemetery was established on 5 acres by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. With . The original layout consisted of three interlocking circles, signifying the Odd F ...

in Columbus, Mississippi.

References

External links

*
1938 film of Franklin reviewing parade of International Battalions of Volunteer Corps in Shanghai, China
{{DEFAULTSORT:Franklin, Cornell 20th-century American lawyers History of Shanghai 1892 births 1959 deaths Chairmen of the Shanghai Municipal Council Mississippi lawyers Hawaii lawyers 20th-century American judges University of Mississippi alumni University of Mississippi School of Law alumni People from Columbus, Mississippi American expatriates in China