George Sturrock recently emailed me, “I am researching the history of eye baths and would be most grateful if you can confirm that the attached eye bath, [see first two images shown below], was marketed by Hutchison Whampoa Ltd, presumably post 1963 when A.S.Watson & Co Ltd was assimilated. The embossed kanji inscription above reads TRADEMARK, I am told, and HUTCHISON WHAMPOA LTD within […]
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HF: The China Sugar Refinery Company started life, I think, in 1874, as Wahee, Smith & Co (or possibly without a comma). Several partners of Wahee, Smith went bankrupt leading to the sale of the refinery to Jardine, Matheson & Company. Choa Chee-bee was compradore at both companies having come to Hong Kong in the early 1870s from Malacca. If […]
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IDJ has kindly sent the following article THE HONG-WATERWORKS. The city of Victoria, a great commercial port and naval and military station of the British Empire, is situated on the south side of a magnificent harbour in that island, separated by a narrow strait from the mainland coast of China, and nearly opposite the entrance to the Canton River. The […]
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Thomas Ngan has sent information about the sketches of Hong Kong by Kwong Kai Ming. These are of general interest though some, including those shown below, are of an industrial or commercial nature. The entire collection of sketches can be found on the Hong Kong Memory Project’s website, linked below. The site says, “This collection displays over 80 pieces of […]
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IDJ has sent the following article about the brief production in Hong Kong, in 1979, by Meccano, owners of Dinky Toys, of a new model car. HF: I have retyped the original article. Thanks to SCT for proofreading the retyped version. Rover 3500 by Dinky ‘Dinky Toys’ and ‘Hong Kong’ don’t quite seem to go together, do they? After all, […]
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IDJ has sent an article about Stone Cutters (or Breakers) and their working lives in Hong Kong… The article was originally published in 1952 by the Building Contractor’s Association which subsequently became the Hong Kong Construction Association which exists today. The images shown here have also been supplied by IDJ but are not in the 1952 article. They are all located […]
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IDJ has sent a newspaper article from 1937 about the official opening of the Jubilee (now Shing Mun) reservoir. HF: I have retyped the article to make the script more legible and to assist searching the site. Thanks to SCT for proofreading the retyped article. We have left intact errors that are in the original printed article. The images included […]
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Thanks to IDJ for the excellent images and information. Hugh Farmer writes:- I had always imagined that the Green Island Cement Company was named after HK’s Green Island (Tsing Chau) opposite Kennedy Town. But no, the company initially started operations on the similarly named island, Ilha Verde, near Macau. The date of its establishment there is given by various sources […]
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Stephen Davies: In the early 1850s in Sai Wan there was a boiler shop run by James Logan and William Swan, and a foundry run by William Dunphy at 58 Praya. Nearby at 63 Praya Harper & Co sold shipbuilding equipment (basically the bits and pieces of patent slips). In 1855 either someone bought out Logan, Swan and Dunphy, or maybe […]
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HF: Delfino Noronha (1824-1900) ran a printing press in Hong Kong from 1844, Noronha and Co., a quasi-government printer, which later on became the actual Hong Kong Government Printer. He was also involved in the first regular ferry between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon though this was apparently little more than a weekend pleasure launch to his “country house” in Yau […]
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