HF: Hong Kong has several locations where there are still clusters of small shipyards. Stonecutters Island, Ap Lei Chau and the north coast of Tsing Yi spring to mind. Another is Tam Kung Temple Road which lies between the Shau Kei Wan MTR station and the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence. Its couple of hundred yards contains about dozen […]
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HF: Cristina Prokop has kindly sent information about her grandfather Oscar Seepol. Mr Seepol had an eventful life and ran a photographic studio in Shanghai, during the 1940s, shown in the image below. Cristina says that her grandfather took many photographs of Shanghai during his time there, some of which could be described as being of industrial subjects. She wondered […]
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Cristina Prokop has kindly sent information about her grandfather Oscar Seepol. HF: As can be seen below Oscar ran a photographic studio in Shanghai during the 1940s and in the War. He took many photographs himself of Shanghai including some featuring industrial subjects. Cristina wondered whether these might be of interest to readers of this website and I thought so, […]
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HF: The SCMP of 26th July 2015 carried a report about the death of Ho Hung Yee who ran an umbrella stand on at the top end of Peel Street for decades. The article begins…”A fixture of the Central street scene dubbed the “Umbrella Man” for the decades he spent helping Hongkongers stay dry has died at the age of […]
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HF: Desalination (or “Desalting” as it appeared to be called at that time) was a source of water in Hong Kong between 1975 and 1981. A large desalination plant was commissioned at Lok On Pai, near Tuen Mun, in 1975, but was decommissioned in 1981 because its operation was more expensive than importing water from Dongjiang in China. A Water Supplies […]
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IDJ has sent this newspaper article about a vehicle built by the South China Iron Works for a rally held in Hong Kong in 1950. We have quite a lot of information regarding this company, all linked below. IDJ notes, “Unfortunately, the micro-film image of the vehicle that heads the article is too obscured to make much out of it. […]
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IDJ has sent a series of articles about managers at Taikoo Dockyard: “John Finnie, the present Manager, was born at Greenock in 1897 and served his apprenticeship with Scotts’ Shipbuilding & Engineering Co., Ltd. He came to Taikoo Dockyard as Ship Draughtsman in 1924, became Assistant Manager in 1930, and was appointed Manager in 1937 on K.E. Greig’s retirement. The […]
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Thanks to IDJ for sending in this 1950 newspaper article about Radio Hong Kong expanding its broadcast programmes. The British Hong Kong Government launched its first radio broadcasting station, known as “GOW”, on 30 June 1928, with a starting staff of only six people. Several name changes occurred over the next few years, and it eventually became known as “Radio Hong Kong” (RHK) […]
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HF: Rob Weir started our interest in the possibility of Stonecutters Island being a site for Hong Kong airport given the dissatisfaction with Kai Tak post WW2 mainly related to its short runways and proximity to mountains. Rob found a Foreign Office file 371/53639 held at The National Archives at Kew, London, UK. The file refers to an investigation of […]
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IDJ: Present day residents of Hong Kong can barely envisage that a major electricity generating power station once dominated the waterfront in the bustling North Point district of Hong Kong island. Today all people see from the harbour is a wall of high-rise residential buildings rising up to the hilltops. However, there are clues are in surviving street names in […]
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