Author: Hugh Farmer

Hugh Farmer has lived in Hong Kong since 1989. He founded the Industrial History of Hong Kong Group in November 2012 to preserve and share information about the city's fast disappearing industrial heritage. This website was started in October 2013.

Review of Dredging in the Netherlands, HK Report 1992 – companies involved in HK projects

Articles, General, Non-Hong Kong Companies, Shipyards + Shipping

HF: Our article, Dredging Marine Sand – Container Terminal 6, 1987, says that the dredging for that particular project was done by the Dutch company Hollandsche Aanneming Maatschappij, better known as HAM. HAM turns up again in the report Review of Dredging Practice in the Netherlands written by ST Gilbert and PWT To and published by the Geotechnical Engineering Office, Civil Engineering Department, Hong […]

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El Oriente – Cigar Factory and Tobacco Plantations – Manila Management Structure

Articles, General, Manufacturing, Non-Hong Kong Companies, People

Edward Schneider (great-grandson of Carl Ingenohl): El Oriente was mostly a trade name, although it did appear in various names of companies of the group associated with Carl Ingenohl’s business group. The parent company was a Swiss partnership of which Ingenohl was the General Partner (and principal partner) and that partnership owned the Hong Kong company, the Manila company (until […]

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Tai Koo Dockyard – 1911 detailed technical article covering its construction

Articles, Construction, Hong Kong Companies, Shipyards + Shipping

HF: The 1909 Directory & Chronicle for China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China…etc, lists AE Griffin as a “Temporary Civil Engineering and Constructional Staff member at the Taikoo Dockyard & Engineering Comapny of Hongkong Ltd.” Griffin is the first listed of 26 such staff and therefore was probably the most senior. Indeed the paragraph before the concluding one in the following paper […]

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Night soil collection in Hong Kong – honey buckets…information needed

Articles, Fishing and Agriculture, General, Traditional Industries, Utilities

IDJ wrote in reponse to our article, “Worst industrial jobs in UK’s history”, linked below – Hong Kong’s own list? “naturally Night Soil Collector. This task went on certainly during my time in HK primarily servicing Western District’s old properties with no drains or sewage pipe-work. I recall it was all dumped into barges at Kennedy Town and taken out to sea for dumping. […]

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Traditional Hakka snacks made and sold in Sai Kung – vanishing HK trades

Articles, Food and Beverages, Manufacturing, Traditional Industries

Mary Anne Le Bas has sent an SCMP article, Six home-grown Hong Kong trades at risk of dying out, published on 21st June 2015. The second of these is about a Sai Kung town resident who makes and sells about 800 boxes of traditional Hakka food daily. The article begins: Hui Sai-ling makes Hakka snacks at her home in Sai Kung […]

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Indo-China Steam Navigation Company – 19th century supplementary information

Articles, Hong Kong Companies, Non-Hong Kong Companies, Shipyards + Shipping

Stephen Davies says the basic story of ICSN is best located in the book, Beancaker to boxboat. Jardine operated ships using the Jardine Matheson house flag from pretty early on – the earliest I think I have dated seems to be from the late 1820s. From that date ships came and went, but nothing that really feels like a JM shipping line […]

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Ma On Shan Iron Mine – recent damage caused to explosives storeroom

Articles, Industrial Buildings + Demolitions, Mines, Quarries + Dredging

HF: The SCMP of 18th April 2016 contained an article about damage caused to the explosives storeroom at the Ma On Shan mine complex by workers from the Lands Department who mistakenly thought it was to be demolished. The article begins: The government last week almost flattened a house in a remote village proposed for grading as a historic building, in […]

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World War Two – BAAG, Mateys and Allied attempts to disrupt HK Dockyards

Articles, Manufacturing, People

Lawrence Tsui: The dockyards that I remember reading in the BAAG papers were the Naval Dockyard, Kowloon Dockyard, Taikoo Dockyard as well as other smaller ones, the names of which I need to research my notes to identify.  There were also ship repair yards mentioned in intelligence reports. These were intelligence intended to help Allied Aerial Bombings in the later half […]

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Tai Koo Dockyard Tug 2 – captained by James Thirwell when sunk by a mine 1941

Articles, Hong Kong Companies, Shipyards + Shipping

Nikki Veriga sent us information about her grandfather James Thirlwell who was a Master Mariner and captained the tug “Tai Koo” on her final voyage. There were actually three Tai Koo Shipyard tugs and the one Nikki’s grandfather was captain of was number 2. Many thanks to IDJ for sending the image of a belching Tai Koo Tug 2 shown above. […]

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HR Butters – first Labour Officer and author of the 1939 Report on Labour and Labour Conditions in Hong Kong

Articles, General, People

The Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography contains an article about Henry Robert Butters written by Norman J Miners.  Permission to use the article here has been granted by HK University Press. Butters was born on 11th April 1898 in Glasgow, Scotland and died on 1st March 1985 in Stirling, Scotland. Neither David Bellis of gwulo.com nor Hugh Farmer of this site have […]

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