Ah King’s Shipyard – first location 1891?-1925, west of HK Corinthian Yacht Club
Stephen Davies/HF: Ah King’s Shipyard is thought to have had three locations.
Gwulo suggests these were:
1st On the Praya waterfront in Wanchai, today’s Johnston Road
2nd 1925 – 1955 Causeway Bay Typhoon shelter in the very corner on a piece of Crown Land
3rd 1955 – 2002 Moved to the final location when the Causeway Bay typhoon shelter was reclaimed to make Victoria Park. (1)
SD: We have no concrete data about actually when Ah King set up shop.
I think it might be possible to find out with a trawl through what extant copies there are of the Index of Streets, House numbers and Lots, the first of which appeared in the 1890s and continued sporadically thereafter until the government took it over in, I think, the early 1900s and made it more or less annual.
One early mention is with the founding of the HK Corinthian Yacht Club in 1904. My hunch is that he’d probably been around for at least a decade by then, probably longer, though whether always on Praya East Central, I haven’t a clue.
HF: annelisec posted a comment on Gwulo’s article, Hong Kong Corinthian Yacht Club, Messrs. E.M. Hazeland and M. McIver started this club in 1904. In 1905, they requested a site for a shed and landing stage east of Ah King’s slipway”. (see Public Records Office ) (2)
HK Corinthian Yacht Club in 1908. Courtesy: Gwulo.com
HF: The HK Memory Project’s – Did HK have industries pre-WW2?, contains “Dockyards operated by Chinese companies included Kwong Hip Lung (established 1877), Ah King’s Slipway (1891) and Tung Hing Loong (around 1897).” However I can’t find HKMP’s source for this statement.(3)
This article was first posted on 23rd March 2017.
- http://gwulo.com/search/node/Ah%20King Ah King’s
- https://gwulo.com/atom/13832 HK Corinthian Yacht Club
- HK Memory Project pre-war industry
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