HF: Hari Naroomal Harilela, was a Hong Kong Indian businessman, hotelier, philanthropist and the founder and chairman of the Harilela Group. The group runs businesses ranging from hotels and real estate investment to import and export trading. Harilela began a tailoring business in Hong Kong, opening a clothing and tailoring shop and then pioneered the idea of supplying custom made […]
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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 […]
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Double click to magnify twice. Thanks to Carles Brasó Broggi for this image of South Sea Textile Mills which comes from an undated Annual Report from the 1960s. The text reads “Covering an area of about 18 acres, the premises of The South Sea Textiles Mills are situated in the New Territories of the Kowloon Peninsula, about 9½ miles from the island […]
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HK: The electronics industry was an emerging industry in Hong Kong in the 1960s. The first electronics factory was established in 1959. Europe and Japan were the world’s pioneers in electronic technology. In the 1970s, the low production costs in Asia attracted manufacture of developed countries to come and set up factories and thus electronics technology was passed to Hong […]
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HF: The story of Kai Tak started in 1912 when two businessman, Ho Kai and Au Tak, formed the Kai Tak Investment Company to reclaim land in Kowloon for development. The land was acquired by the government for use as a airfield after the business plan failed. In 1924, Harry Abbott opened the Abbott School of Aviation on that piece […]
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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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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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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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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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