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: Teh Hu Steamship (德和輪船公司) Left: T.Y. Wu at an international shipping convention in Taipei in 1971 (National Repository of Cultural Heritage, Taiwan); Right: “New Teh Hu” on slip at the Taikoo Dockyard (presumably in the 1960s) Since 1949, Shanghainese shipowners had dominated the shipping industry in Hong Kong but while most are familiar with Y.K. Pao of Worldwide […]
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York Lo: Tung Mow Hides & Leather Factory(同茂皮廠) – pioneer of the HK leather industry Left: registration of the Elephant trademark by Tung Mow in 1933 (HK Government Reports); Right: Ho Chung-king speaking at the opening of the Tung Mow plant in Peng Chau in 1955 (WKYP, 1955-5-17) Founded in 1872, Tung Mow Hides & Leather Factory was a pioneer […]
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Tymon Mellor: On the 28th March, 1886, the first of many blasts was initiated at the Mui Wo silver mine. The owner, Mr Ho A Mei (see Part One of this article linked below) wanted to extract the galena ore to aid in the mineral processing of the richer ore from a Mainland mine of his. The mineral processing facility […]
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York Lo: Murjani – the Ups and Downs of a HK Garment Dynasty The history of the HK garment industry would not be complete without the profile of the Murjanis. Starting with a single shop in 1930, Bhagwandas Kewalram Murjani (B.K. Murjani) started one of the first and largest HK garment exporters to the US market in the 1950s. The family […]
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HF: Impressively named Carl Franz Adolph Otto Ingenohl was the owner of C. Ingenohl which operated cigar manufacturing companies in both the Philippines and Hong Kong under the trade name La Perla del Oriente. In Hong Kong Ingenohl ran the Orient Tobacco Manufactury Company which had a factory in Yau Ma Tei. I cannot find a image of Mr Ingenohl. Did […]
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York Lo: The Rise and Fall of the HK Ivory Industry and some of its key players Catalog of Man Hing Ivory Factory (Memoires of a Travelholic, 2014) While many industries in Hong Kong went away due to rising production costs and soaring property values, ivory was one industry that was shut down by a worldwide ban enacted in 1989 […]
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York Lo: Li Po-chun (李寶椿): his family, his buildings and businesses and a century of philanthropy Earlier on the website, we have covered several branches of the family of Li Sing, the richest man in Hong Kong in 1900 including his grandsons Lee Sai-wah and Li Shiu-chung and his nephew Li Po-kwai (see article on China Dispensary). However, the most […]
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By Fung Chi Ming The tricycle or ‘cycle rickshaw’, as some people now call it, combines the characteristics of bicycle and rickshaw. Tricycles could be found in Asia and around the world, but they differed significantly in design and appearance. In Malacca and Singapore, it was a carriage with a passenger seat on the left side of the rider. In […]
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