HF: The Star Ferry traces its origins to 1880 when Dorabjee Naorojee Mithaiwala, a Parsee cook, embarked on a new vocation. He began a ferry service across Victoria Harbour with his steamboat, the Morning Star. The fledgling service was known as the Kowloon Ferry Company.(1) Before the steam ferry service was first established, people crossed the harbour in flat bottomed […]
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York Lo: Kwong Fat Yuen Hong (廣發源行) – the 150 year old King of Leather Leather trademarks registered by Kwong Fat Yuen Hong in the 1930s with the HK colonial government – “Lion” brand in 1936 on the left and”Unicorn” and “Tank” brands in 1937 on the right (HK Government Report) Founded in 1867, Kwong Fat Yuen Hong is one […]
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Hugh Farmer: On a visit to the HK Museum of History on 6th Feb 2014 I noticed this enticing snippet from the Information Services Department 1960s. “Most home utensils such as baskets and strainers were woven from rattan rather than bamboo as in the past. Demand was high for bamboo-made fishing and farming tools, such as fish traps, cages for […]
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One of the smaller mines in Hong Kong is located at Ho Chung, near Sai Kung, where Wolfram, the ore of Tungsten was exploited in small quantities over many years. The village of Ho Chung was founded around 1550, farming rice in the terraced valley. After the First World War, mining of the ore commenced and continued intermittently until the […]
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HK: The first mode of transport for the public in Hong Kong was the Peak Tram, serving The Peak (at Victoria Gap), the Mid Levels and the city centre since 1888. The idea of constructing a railway between Hong Kong and the Mainland was first put forward as early as 1864 by a British railway engineer, MacDonald Stephenson, who had […]
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Tymon Mellor: In the summer of 1963, with severe water restrictions of only four hours every fourth day in urban Hong Kong, the Colonial Government was searching for new water supplies that could be expeditiously developed. A number of schemes had been explored and these were presented to the Executive Council in October, 1963. In addition to the Plover Cover […]
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James Chan: Hughie D, Veteran Member of derelictplaces.co.uk has posted a piece about this company on its website. This was posted in July 2015. Hughie says: “This place is a bit of a strange one. This old silk mill is in the middle of Tsuen Wan…and must represent very valuable real estate. I remember passing this place a number of […]
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HF: Hong Kong’s early colonial developmental history is intertwined with maritime trade. Dockyards and shipbuilding thus became one of the earliest industries of the Colony. After 1841, Hong Kong’s first dockyard was located in East Point, Causeway Bay. In 1857, the Scottish entrepreneur John Lamont built the Lamont Dock in Aberdeen. By 1963, a few British firms combined a handful […]
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HF: The Company in Hong Kong: “The Sperry Flour Company has been interested in the flour trade of the Colony for upwards of forty years—a period considerably longer than any other similar company—and during the whole of this time it has lost no opportunity of studying the requirements of Eastern buyers, with the object of pushing business throughout the […]
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