The Sutlers Supreme

Serving the Empire in China: NAAFI’s Shanghai Experience (1927 to 1939)

Introduction

The shaded courtyard of the Central Institute’s “New World” Café in Shanghai was the starting point for this page. When I first encountered a photograph of the café — published in The Imperial Club Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Christmas 1928) — it immediately drew my attention. Beneath its ornate rooftops, British servicemen sit at small tables, drinking tea and talking, momentarily insulated from the unfamiliar city beyond the courtyard walls. It is a quiet, almost domestic scene, and yet one that raises larger questions about how institutions such as NAAFI established themselves in China during a period of political uncertainty and imperial transition. That photograph, and the material published alongside it, would become the starting point for a closer examination of NAAFI’s early presence in China and in particular Shanghai.

Central Institute, “New World” Café, Shanghai.

Published in The Imperial Club Magazine, Vol.1, No.1, Christmas 1928.

(Author’s NAAFI collection).

The image does not stand alone. In the same issue of the magazine, the editor devoted an entire page to a letter written from Shanghai by a man signing himself simply as Cecil, believed to have been a member of the NAAFI management team. Addressed to the editor shortly after his arrival in the city, the letter offers a candid account of life in Shanghai following the deployment of British troops in 1927. Cecil writes not in the language of official memoranda, but in an informal, personal tone, commenting on the climate, accommodation, local conditions, and the practical realities of establishing NAAFI services in a complex treaty-port environment.

“I told you about the ‘smells’ in my last — like the poor, they are always with us. Understand they are worse in other parts of China. Fortunately, it is unsafe to go outside the Settlement at present.”

— Cecil, letter published in The Imperial Club Magazine, Christmas 1928

Cecil’s wording reflects the casual imperial assumptions common among British residents of the International Settlement, even as it conveys the continued sense of insecurity beyond its boundaries.

Although the letter itself is undated, its publication in the Christmas 1928 issue suggests it was written during 1928, at a point when the initial turbulence of arrival had begun to subside. By then, NAAFI was no longer simply arriving in Shanghai but starting to embed itself within the routines of the British military presence. Cecil’s account reads as a reflective description of work and daily life rather than an urgent field report, offering a sense of how NAAFI adapted to its surroundings and gradually became part of the fabric of garrison life.

“Witnessed a competition at the ‘New World’ Café the other night between two groups of customers. Fortunately, the Orderly-Corporal shouted ‘Time please,’ and business is now as usual.”

— Cecil, letter published in The Imperial Club Magazine, Christmas 1928

The brief incident offers a glimpse into the informal social life that developed around NAAFI spaces, while also underlining the continued presence of military discipline within them.

Taken together, the photograph of the New World Café and Cecil’s letter form a rare piece of personal ephemera. They provide not an official overview of policy or organisation, but a contemporaneous glimpse into how NAAFI operated on the ground — how it followed the military footprint, created familiar spaces in unfamiliar settings, and offered both practical support and a sense of continuity far from home.

Drawing on such material, this page explores NAAFI’s presence in China between 1927 and 1939, focusing on Shanghai while situating it within a wider network of treaty ports such as Tientsin and the British role within the International Legation at Peking, as the region moved steadily toward renewed instability and global conflict. What follows examines how these early impressions translated into everyday practice, as seen through NAAFI’s operations in Shanghai in the years that followed.

Background: Empire, Treaty Ports, and Rising Tensions

Britain’s presence in China during the early twentieth century was the product of nearly a century of uneven and often uneasy engagement. Following the Opium Wars of the mid-nineteenth century, a series of unequal treaties opened key coastal cities — including Shanghai and Tientsin — to foreign trade and settlement. These treaty ports became enclaves of international commerce, governed by their own municipal councils and protected by foreign troops drawn from several imperial powers. For Britain, they were vital nodes in a global imperial network, linking trade, finance, and naval power across Asia.

Treaty-port China: Shanghai and Tientsin (Tianjin), principal centres of British commercial and diplomatic activity from the mid-nineteenth century onward.

Source: Wikipedia, “Treaty ports in China,” accessed January 2026.

Yet this arrangement sat uneasily within China. The humiliation of the Opium Wars, the loss of territorial control, and the extraterritorial privileges granted to foreigners fuelled resentment that periodically erupted into violence. The Boxer Rebellion of 1900, in which foreign legations in Peking were besieged, was the most dramatic expression of this anger. Although the uprising was suppressed by an international force, it left deep scars and reinforced the sense that foreign communities in China lived behind a fragile protective shield.

The early decades of the twentieth century brought further instability. The fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911 ushered in a turbulent era of competing warlords, shifting alliances, and a growing nationalist movement determined to end foreign influence. By the mid-1920s, China was in the midst of a civil conflict that would eventually draw the Nationalist armies northwards toward the treaty ports. As tensions sharpened and anti-foreign sentiment rose, the security of British civilians, businesses, and diplomatic missions became increasingly uncertain — conditions that would soon require not only military protection, but the support services that accompanied it.

It was against this backdrop of imperial entanglement, nationalist resurgence, and mounting unrest that the events of 1927 unfolded — events that would bring British troops back into Shanghai in significant numbers, and with them the newly formed NAAFI.

The Shanghai Crisis of 1927

By the spring of 1927, Shanghai stood at the centre of a rapidly shifting political landscape. China’s Northern Expedition — a campaign by Nationalist forces to reunify the country — was sweeping northwards, unsettling the fragile balance that had long protected the foreign-controlled International Settlement. As strikes, demonstrations, and armed clashes intensified, British authorities feared that the Settlement’s multinational civilian population could soon be caught in the crossfire.

NAAFI advertisement published in the Royal Engineers Journal, December 1946.

Reflecting on the Shanghai Defence Force of 1927, it highlights NAAFI’s role in maintaining canteen services under near-war conditions.

In response, the British Government assembled the Shanghai Defence Force, a substantial deployment of Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force personnel sent to safeguard British lives, businesses, and diplomatic interests. Their arrival transformed Shanghai almost overnight: streets were fortified, wire barricades erected, and defensive positions established around the perimeter of the Settlement. For the thousands of British civilians living and working in the city — merchants, engineers, missionaries, clerks, and their families — the threat felt immediate and real.

It was into this tense and uncertain environment that NAAFI stepped. Established only six years earlier, in 1921, NAAFI had been created to provide a consistent, reliable canteen service for the Forces both at home and overseas. The Shanghai crisis offered the organisation its first major test under what it later described as “near-war conditions.” A post-war NAAFI advertisement, looking back on these events, recalled that if one had been a soldier in 1927, one might have been among the troops sent to defend the Settlement from “500,000 Chinese terrorists” — language very much of its time, but revealing of the fear and urgency felt by British authorities.

Newspaper clipping from the Naval Military Record and Royal Dockyards Gazette, 4 May 1927.

Reporting on NAAFI’s rapid expansion in Shanghai and Hong Kong, it details the opening of institutes, mobile canteens, and general shops for British forces in the Far East.

For NAAFI staff, the task was clear: to follow the troops, set up canteens, and provide the comforts and routines of service life amid uncertainty. In Shanghai, this meant establishing facilities such as the Central Institute’s “New World” Café, where British servicemen could find a moment of normality beneath the ornate eaves of a Chinese pavilion. These early ventures laid the groundwork for what would become a fully developed Overseas Canteen Service by the outbreak of the Second World War.

The events of 1927 therefore mark the true beginning of NAAFI’s presence in China — not as a commercial expansion, but as a direct response to geopolitical crisis. The organisation’s role in Shanghai, Tientsin, and the British Legation in Peking would continue to evolve throughout the 1930s, shaped by rising tensions and the shifting fortunes of China and the wider region.

The Shanghai Defence Force and NAAFI’s Continued Role

At its height in early 1927, the Shanghai Defence Force (SDF) numbered over 20,000 troops — a formidable multinational deployment tasked with defending the Shanghai International Settlement and foreign populations during a period of acute political unrest. British Army units, Royal Navy detachments, and Royal Air Force personnel were joined by forces from other treaty powers, all stationed within a tightly fortified perimeter. From January to late July 1927, the SDF maintained a visible and active presence, reinforcing barricades, patrolling key intersections, and preparing for the possibility of direct conflict.

Although the immediate threat subsided by the summer of 1927, the British military presence in Shanghai did not vanish. The SDF was gradually reduced in 1928, but a significant British garrison remained — a stabilising force amid the ongoing volatility of Chinese politics. For NAAFI, this meant that its work in Shanghai was far from over. The organisation continued to operate canteens, shops, and mobile services for British personnel stationed in the city, adapting its offerings to meet the needs of a peacetime garrison while remaining ready for renewed instability.

A 1935 military map of Shanghai, reproduced below, shows the extent and distribution of foreign defence forces within the city. British camps, billets, and supply depots are clearly marked, alongside French, American, Japanese, and other international positions. The map offers a rare glimpse into the spatial reality of treaty-port defence — a city divided not only by politics, but by military geography.

Map of Shanghai, c.1935.

Showing the locations of British, French, American, Japanese and other defence forces within the International Settlement and surrounding districts.

Source: Virtual Shanghai Project.

NAAFI’s continued presence in Shanghai throughout the 1930s reflected both the strategic importance of the city and the enduring role of British forces in maintaining imperial interests. As tensions escalated in the region — particularly with the rise of Japanese militarism — NAAFI’s operations would once again be tested under increasingly complex and dangerous conditions.

NAAFI in Shanghai: From Crisis to Community

Following the drawdown of the Shanghai Defence Force in 1928, NAAFI’s operations in the city did not diminish. Instead, they adapted to a new rhythm — one shaped less by emergency provisioning and more by the steady routines of garrison life. Within this evolving pattern, Shanghai remained a central hub for British military and civilian personnel throughout the interwar years.

The Bund, Shanghai.

The city’s principal riverfront and commercial artery. NAAFI’s Shanghai warehouse was located in one of the dockside buildings along the Bund, placing it at the logistical heart of Britain’s treaty-port operations.

Imperial Club Magazine, Christmas 1932.

“I found the military spread about in buildings and camps all over the city, the Bund to be a riverside thoroughfare flanked by some very fine bank, shipping and insurance offices. Our warehouse is here on the Bund, and some of the Institutes are out in the suburbs five miles away. I found that, in Shanghai, I was no longer a European or an Englishman but a foreigner, and that the town is a model for the League of Nations.”

— Anonymous NAAFI report, Imperial Club Magazine, Christmas 1934

Written several years after the events of 1927, the account captures both the practical realities of NAAFI’s dispersed operations across Shanghai and the city’s distinctive international character as experienced by its staff. It also reflects the adjustment required of those working within a setting where familiarity was constantly reshaped by distance, scale, and cultural difference.

By the early 1930s, NAAFI had become a familiar presence in Shanghai’s social landscape. Reports in the Imperial Club Magazine describe institutes that offered more than refreshments alone, functioning as modest but important points of contact for staff scattered across the city. With only a handful of European personnel working in different parts of Shanghai, opportunities to meet socially were limited, making these institutes valuable spaces for maintaining routine, morale, and a sense of connection within the wider community.

Central Institute, “New World” Café, Shanghai.

Published in The Imperial Club Magazine, Vol.1, No. 2, Summer 1929.

(Author’s NAAFI collection).

Among the most distinctive of these spaces was the New World Café, which featured regularly in reports and photographs in the Imperial Club Magazine. Situated within the Central Institute, it offered a setting markedly different from the utilitarian image often associated with service canteens. Contemporary accounts describe tea taken beneath ornate roofs, with music playing and a sense of routine that contrasted with the political uncertainty beyond the Settlement. In such surroundings, NAAFI’s institutes functioned not simply as places of refreshment, but as anchors of familiarity within an otherwise demanding environment.

Report from Shanghai,

The Imperial Club Magazine, Vol. III, No. 13, Christmas 1934.

Reports from Shanghai describe staff recovering from what one contributor termed “a very trying summer — the hottest in Shanghai for at least sixty years,” while also noting that such conditions were simply part of everyday life in the city. Tennis matches were played, social obligations maintained, and institutes kept running. In these accounts, Shanghai appears less as a place of crisis than as a demanding but settled environment, one that required adaptation rather than alarm.

NAAFI’s role in Shanghai also extended beyond fixed institutes and familiar routines. Reports occasionally reveal more improvised forms of service, shaped by the city’s geography and the evolving demands of imperial defence. One such account describes a canteen operating from a boat near the landing stage on the River Wangpu, serving the crews of Singapore-based flying boats delayed by weather and engine trouble.

Report from Shanghai,

The Imperial Club Magazine, Vol. III, No. 16, Summer 1936.

The tone of these reports is often practical, humorous, and quietly proud. In describing the flying boat canteen, one writer notes that it catered for “the three Services — Army, Navy and Air Force — for our canteen was amphibian.” Humour of this kind points to a working culture that valued adaptability and service, and that met unusual circumstances with understatement rather than complaint.

Even as tensions rose in the late 1930s, NAAFI’s Shanghai operations remained active. The 1938 edition of the Imperial Club Magazine recounts an incident involving a bomb lodged in the premises of Jardine Matheson — a reminder that the city’s apparent calm was always provisional. Yet alongside such stories, the magazine also records the rhythms of daily life: football matches, picnics, and the enduring popularity of NAAFI clubs and canteens. The British community, though small, was sustained by these institutions, and by the staff who kept them running.

Report from Shanghai,

The Imperial Club Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 20, Summer 1938.

This examination of NAAFI’s work in Shanghai has shown an organisation shaped as much by adaptation and routine as by moments of crisis. From dispersed institutes and cafés to improvised services along the river, NAAFI staff operated within a complex international city by sustaining familiarity, morale, and a sense of community in uncertain circumstances.

In later years, NAAFI itself would point to experiences gained in places such as Shanghai as formative. An advertisement published shortly after the Second World War reflected on the value of pre-war overseas service, suggesting that the practical lessons learned in demanding environments — logistical flexibility, cultural awareness, and the maintenance of morale far from home — proved invaluable once global conflict returned.

Seen in this light, Shanghai was not merely a posting on the margins of empire, but a place where patterns of service were tested, refined, and quietly carried forward into wartime.

Sources

Primary sources

The Imperial Club Magazine (Shanghai), Vol. 1, No. 1, Christmas 1928. Includes the “New World” Café photograph and the letter from “Cecil”.

The Imperial Club Magazine (Shanghai), Vol. 1, No. 2, Summer 1929. “New World” Café image.

The Imperial Club Magazine (Shanghai), Christmas 1932. The Bund, Shanghai (warehouse location context).

The Imperial Club Magazine (Shanghai), Vol. III, No. 13, Christmas 1934. Report from Shanghai (summer conditions and daily routines).

The Imperial Club Magazine (Shanghai), Christmas 1934. Anonymous NAAFI report describing dispersed institutes and warehouse operations.

The Imperial Club Magazine (Shanghai), Vol. III, No. 16, Summer 1936. “Flying boat canteen” report.

The Imperial Club Magazine (Shanghai), Vol. IV, No. 20, Summer 1938. Report on the Jardine Matheson bomb incident and contemporary social activity.

Royal Engineers Journal, December 1946. NAAFI advertisement reflecting on the Shanghai Defence Force and “near-war conditions” of 1927.

Naval Military Record and Royal Dockyards Gazette, 4 May 1927. Newspaper report on NAAFI’s rapid expansion in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Maps and reference works

Virtual Shanghai Project. “Map of Shanghai showing the distribution of foreign forces and defences,” c.1935.

Wikipedia. “Treaty ports” and related map material (accessed January 2026).

Collections

Author’s NAAFI collection (magazines, photographs, and reproduced press clippings).