On the orders of Sir Henry Pottinger, first Governor of Hong Kong, Captain George Balfour of the East India Company's Madras Artillery arrived as Britain's first consul in Shanghai on 8November 1843 aboard the steamer Medusa. The next morning Balfour sent word to the circuit intendant of Shanghai, Gong Mujiu (then romanized Kung Moo-yun), requesting a meeting, at which he indicated his desire to find a house to live in. Initially Balfour was told no such properties were available, but on leaving the meeting, he received an offer from a pro-British Cantonese named Yao to rent a large house within the city walls for four hundred dollars per annum. Balfour, his interpreter Walter Henry Medhurst, surgeon Dr. Hale and clerk A. F. Strachan moved into the luxuriously furnished 52-room house immediately.
