Far East Flying Training School Ltd, Part 2

IDJ: After the war the school was re-established catering for up to two-hundred pupils at a time. In 1952, the school was absorbed into the Wheelock Marden group of companies. One result of Typhoon Wanda in 1962 was that the school’s hangars housing its training facilities were destroyed, along with a number of its aircraft. Flying instruction then ceased to […]

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Far East Flying Training School Ltd, Part 1

IDJ: Probably ‘the first’ formal engineering training school in Hong Kong was the Far East Flying Training School Ltd established as a private venture in November 1933 at Kai Tak Airport. Pupils from Hong Kong, China, Macao and many countries in Asia attended class-room courses on aeroplane structures, engine technology, as well as the use of hand-tools and workshop machine […]

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The Hongkong and China Gas Company Ltd – information and images from c1908

IDJ has sent these extracts from a 1908 book which describe the company and show photographs of its operations. The company was founded in 1862, The Hong Kong and China Gas Company Limited (now known as Towngas) was Hong Kong’s first public utility and its original generating plant, the first in Asia, stood on the waterfront at West Point near Whitty Street. […]

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European Settlements in the Far East – Part Four Macau in around 1900

Vaudine England has kindly sent a link to what she describes as a typically 1900-era directory of the European empires in the east. The author was D Warren Smith. We have already posted the following extracts from this account, Part One – Industries in Hong Kong, Part Two – Shipyards in Hong Kong, and Part Three – The Peak District […]

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Triangle Motors (合眾汽車) – from Shanghai to HK and from Opel to Isuzu

Triangle Motors Detail Image 2 York Lo

York Lo: Triangle Motors (合眾汽車) – from Shanghai to HK and from Opel to Isuzu Leon Zigal and the first Opel in Hong Kong (Eagles and Dragons) Founded in Shanghai in 1931 by Leon Zigal (1900-1962) and relocated to HK in the late 1940s, Triangle Motors has been an important player in the distribution of automobiles and trucks in HK and […]

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Proposed revival of Walla-Walla water taxis in Hong Kong

Walla Walla Image B Blake Pier 1956 IDJ

“If you missed the last Star Ferry at 1:30am, [back in the 1960s] you could hire a walla-walla (jip6 laa1 jip6 laa1 嘩啦嘩啦), a kind of small motorised water taxi that plied the waters between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. “The name came from the sound of the boats when they were cruising,” says retired journalist Li Ping-sum,who grew up in Yau Ma Tei. […]

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Key Players in the Public Cars Business (紅牌車) in the early 1970s – Chuen Lee, Fraternity, PCRC, United and Wing Lee  

Public Cars Business In The Early 1970s Detail Image 3 York Lo

Earlier on the website, we profiled the major taxicab companies in HK from the 1920s to the 1960s. The late 1960s saw the dissolution of the large taxicab companies and the emergence of driver-owned taxis driven by regulatory changes and the proliferation of transportation vehicles such as minibuses and unlicensed cabs (also known as “white plate cars”) to meet the […]

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Kowloon Trams – the when, the where but not the why not…and proposed cross harbour tram bridge!

IDJ has sent the PF Leeds 1984 extract below concerning Trams in Kowloon. HF Presumably “the company” means Hong Kong Tramways. (Note: In 1902 Hong Kong Tramway Electric Company Limited was founded. In the same year the company changed its name to Electric Traction Company of Hong Kong Limited. And in 1910 the name changed again to The Hong Kong […]

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United Delivery Co Ltd (聯合運貨汽車有限公司)

United Delivery Co Ltd Detail Image 2 York Lo

York Lo: United Delivery Co Ltd (聯合運貨汽車有限公司) Left: Ad for United Delivery in an old telephone directory – 10 phone numbers were listed, and cross harbor delivery capabilities were highlighted; Right: United Delivery founder Albert Youngsaye and his wife Lai Yung-mei (Maureen Fan, Geni)   Established in 1933, United Delivery Co Ltd was a leading logistics provider in Hong Kong […]

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