One of our earliest articles was Linda Kernan’s, The Vitasoy Story, which was sent out in email Newsletter 6 in May 2013. A recent SCMP article provides further information about the company which was started in 1940 by Lo Kwee Seong as The Hong Kong Soya Bean Products Company. As this suggests, “It’s one of a few classic Hong Kong brands, […]
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Many thanks to IDJ for sending the brief magazine article below. He believes that the short lived, mid 1970’s, helicopter company may have been based on Lamma island. Can anyone verify this? The image shown below accompanied the magazine article. The smart Bell 206B helicopter sometimes encountered in flights around the Colony is operated by Sim Air Ltd., and flown by […]
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Stephen Davies: An interesting question to which I don’t know the answer, is what the provenance is of the gasometer that still stands (and I believe is in use for stand-by storage) back from the Tin Wan Praya waterfront just outside the Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter West entrance (on the north shore). I’m fairly sure it’s been there as long as I […]
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York Lo: H P Wu’s full name was Hsin Ping Wu (吳新炳). Born in 1894 and native of Kiangyin in Kiangsu province, he went to Tsinghua and studied in the US as a Boxer Indemnity Scholar, receiving his BS in electrical engineering from Cornell in 1921 and training at General Electric in the US. From 1927 to 1937, he was […]
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF HONG KONG AIR INTERNATIONAL LIMITED Hong Kong Air, the Colony’s only commercial helicopter service, commenced operations in August 1970 and initially was based at the Flying Club. The Club made its hangar available to Hong Kong Air until the present hangar near the HAECO complex was completed. The first helicopters in the Hong Kong Air fleet […]
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“It is interesting to note that as years go by the wants of the inhabitants of even the most distant parts of the world are steadily increasing, and while the older generations were satisfied with comparatively little in the way of luxuries, the rising generation look upon many of these luxuries as necessities. Perhaps one of the best examples in […]
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“Getz Bros. & Co.- America’s largest non-commodity international marketing and services company – traces its beginnings to 1860 and a place called Lower Lake, California, a frontier area one hundred miles north of San Francisco. Joseph Getz, a Prussian immigrant, opened a general store there that served farmers in the area, selling dry goods and groceries. By the early 1880s […]
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This following is from a 1908 account: “This well-known firm of engineers and shipbuilders was originally established by Mr Choi Chik Nam, in 1897, for the purpose of building and repairing steam launches, river craft etc. Two workshops are now kept busy – one at Yaumati, and the other at Praya East, Wanchai – and afford employment for close upon […]
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HF: I asked Stephen Davies (ex-Director of the Maritime Museum, Hong Kong) if he had further information about the Kaishu Maru which a BAAG report of July/August 1944 suggests was, pre-WW2, a HK-Canton river steamer (see link below). SD: The only Kaishu Maru and Kaisho Maru that I know were both Imperial Japanese Army transports and ex-general cargo ships, sunk […]
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“This firm was founded in 1902 by Mr. E. C. Wilks, as a marine engineers’ and surveyors’ bureau. Mr. Wilks was joined in 1903 by Mr. W. C. Jack, formerly Ingenieur en Chef of the Tonkin River Mail Service, and late assistant manager at the Kowloon establishment of the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company. During the five years of […]
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