HF: Barbier, Benard and Turenne (BBT) was a French company founded in 1862. It specialized in the manufacture of lights, optical devices and lighting systems. And complete lighthouses including the one on Hong Kong’s Waglan Island. The lighthouse incorporated Fresnel lenses. The Swedish Company AGA was later involved as was its UK subsidiary Pharos Marine. I didn’t know the name […]
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Edward Schneider, Carl Ingenohl’s great-grandson, has sent this 1911 advert which confirms the factory location was on a large site in Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon, bordered by Nathan Road, Dundas and Soy Streets (and also as Edward confirms elsewhere, Kwong Wa Street). The single page advert has been divided for this article into four sections. HF: I believe the term Flor […]
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HF: The Tien Chu (H.K.) Company Ltd. was founded by Wu Yunchu (1891-1953). Wu was a chemist and industrialist and known as the “Father of Monosodium Glutamate”. He was involved in the chemical and condiment industries in China especially I believe in Shanghai in the 1930s. York Lo says Wu Yunchu actually went by the name of “P. N. Woo” (probably due […]
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HF: From 1757 up to the outbreak of the Opium War, Guangzhou was China’s only trading port. 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. Source: Hong Kong Memory Project This article was first posted on 10th February 2026. Related Indhhk articles: […]
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HF: How many cities have multi-storey depots for double decker buses? Hong Kong does. Here’s one at 391 Chai Wan Road/Sheung On Street, the former head office of Hong Kong’s first bus company China Motor Bus. A five storey concrete parking facility it was the company’s largest depot but now appears empty and unused. In February 1998, the government announced the […]
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Maureen Fan left a comment below Carles Brasó Broggi’s article Shanghai Spinners: Pioneers of Hong Kong’s Industrialisation. This reads in part: Thank you for your informative article. My grandfather Robert Fan Wenzhao (1893-1979) was the architect who designed the HK Spinners factory at Cheung Sha Wan, including the workers dormitories, a dining hall, a recreation area, basketball and volleyball courts and […]
» Read moreHF: From 1757 up to the outbreak of the Opium War, Guangzhou was China’s only trading port. 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.
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Stephen Davies: The founder of Universal Dockyards (now within the UDL Group) was Mr Leung Man Kwong (梁文廣, b. unknown-d.1966), who I’ve been trying to track down for ages and have at last managed to via this website. Mr Leung was the boss of 80 divers, shipwrights, blacksmiths and other salvage workers, who were on hand in late 1945/early 1946 (they’d […]
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Many thanks to IDJ for sending the article below. It announces that following Stanley Ho being awarded the Macau gambling franchise which took effect from 1st January 1962 he planned to introduce a helicopter service between Hong Kong and Macau. There are no further details about these proposals regarding locations, timetables, costs, helicopters etc. IDJ says the helicopter plan was […]
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