Green Island Cement Company – stunning photos

Thanks to IDJ  for the excellent images and information.

Hugh Farmer writes:- I had always imagined  that the Green Island Cement Company was named after HK’s Green Island (Tsing Chau) opposite Kennedy Town. But no, the company initially started operations on the similarly named island, Ilha Verde, near Macau. The date of its establishment there  is given by various sources as 1886, 1887 and 1890. The contemporary company website says 1887.

Click an image to enlarge it.

“Green Island Cement Factories Macao” Date unknown. I presume the cement factory is on the left indicated by the chimneys.

In 1898 or 1899, the  company moved to a location on the harbour front at  Hok Yuen, an area in East Kowloon near Hung Hom where  a larger and more fully equipped factory was built. (The Macau “factories”  appear to have continued.) The account given below from about 1904 says that the general managers at that time were Messrs. Shewan, Tomes, & Co, but I wonder if this major HK/Asia concern actually established the companies in Macau and Hong Kong.

As can be seen by these photographs this was a very large undertaking in terms of the area of the factory site. It also employed a huge number of people, though curiously very few of the 2,000 workers mentioned below can be seen here, almost as if the works was on the verge of closing. I wonder when the latter happened?

A great deal more research needs to be done to identify, not least, what went on in each of the buildings.

To quote from the article attached to the photos:- “Year by year the plant has been extended until today [about 1904]  this factory occupies an area of upwards of 1,000,000 square feet, whilst the machinery, worth as many dollars, has an output of nearly 8,000 tons a month [which apparently was almost enough to supply local needs]….

[The cement] is composed of clay and crushed limestone mixed in certain proportions, and burned in a kiln. [This appears to a simplification of the components of Portland cement  which requires limestone, clay, iron ore, gypsum and coal.] The clay is found in the delta of the Canton River, and the limestone is brought from the neighbourhood of of Canton. The materials are unloaded from junks into overhead buckets, which convey it from the wharf to the factory. There the stone is pulverised in a series of crushing mills, the first of which reduce about eight tons of stone per day to the size of ordinary road metal, and the last, called “Griffin” mills, convert it into fine powder. The clay is also ground, and the two ingredients are then elevated to the top of floor of the building, where they are mixed automatically.

A further reduction takes place in the tube mills, in which the powder passes through a rotating iron cylinder containing flints. In another machine the powder is mixed with water,and issues in a continuous strip, of oblong section, which is sliced off into bricks. After being stacked for eighteen hours in drying tunnels, these bricks are fed into kilns, chiefly of the rotary type.  The product of these kilns, known to the workers as “clinker” is then ground, first in ball and then in tube mills, and the resultant powder, Portland cement, is fed into specially constructed trucks and stored in bins ready for packing.

The Rotary Kilns

Bags for  putting up the cement are purchased, but casks are made on the premises, modern coopering devices being employed.

Power for the whole of the works is supplied from five Babcock & Wilcox boilers, the engines generating 500 and 300 horse-power respectively. The works are lit throughout by electricity.

The general manager of the factory, Mr. V. Uldall, a man of great experience in the trade, has been in the service of the Company for fifteen years. He has under him a staff of nearly two thousand men; but if the persons indirectly concerned are taken into account the probability is that the enterprise gives employment to upwards of three thousand.

The caption suggests that the building in the foreground is the manager’s house

The chief engineer is Mr A.H. Hewitt, who joined the Company in that capacity in 1889, soon after its inception, and has since been responsible for the building and running of its factories. He commenced his engineering career at Messrs. Maudsley, Sons & Field’s works, was one of the earliest members of of the “Junior Engineers” and became an Associated Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers in 1895.”

Green Island Cement is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of Cheung Kong Infrastructure. Today the cement works are at 7 Lung Yiu Street, Tap Shek Kok, Tuen Mun.