Hong Kong Enamelware Factory (香港搪瓷廠)

York Lo: Hong Kong Enamelware Factory (香港搪瓷廠)

1953 ad for Hong Kong Enamelware Factory

Hong Kong Enamelware Factory was one of the leading enamelware manufacturers in HK in the 1950s with its factory located at 608 Castle Peak Road in Kowloon and its office in Edinburgh House in Central.The firm was known for its Diamond brand of enamelware products.

Incorporated in 1952 with HK$1 million in nominal capital, HK Enamelware Factory was founded by Pan Sieh-yang (潘燮陽), Yeh Chuen-cho (葉春初) and Pan Chi-chiang and the three were managing director, manager and sub-manager of the firm respectively. The three principals like many of their fellow enamelware manufacturers in HK at the time, came from Shanghai but little information is available about their earlier ventures back in Shanghai.

Of the three founders, Yeh was the most active with community affairs in HK in the 1950s, having served as vice president of Kitchee Football Club in 1958 (president at the time was another prominent enamelware businessman – Tung Chen-ying of I-Feng Enamelling) and director of Po Leung Kuk in 1955. S.Y. Pan and C.C. Yeh was part of a large CMA delegation which visited Singapore in 1953 and a 10 member mission to Taipei in 1952.

HK Enamelware’s CC Yeh (first from the left) with Hui Ngok (centre) and C.W. Chu (co-founder of Hwa Fuh Manufacturing) as directors of Po Leung Kuk sending off 3 orphans who were adopted by Chinese Americans at the Kai Tak Airport (Source: WahKiuYat Po, 1957-2-2)

Aside from the founders, the executives of HK Enamelware Factory also included works manager Chow Keng-cheng (周經澄) and accountant Frank C.Y. Tsu (who later went to Tanzania to act as managing director of an enamelware factory established as a joint venture between HK interests and the Tanzanian government). V.P. Sung (沈文伯, 1927-), who later achieved fame as a leading enamelware manufacturer in Nigeria as the proprietor of Northern Enamelware Co Ltd in Kano, also worked for HK Enamelware Factory in HK in the 1950s before being recruited to join a Lebanese-owned enamelware factory in Nigeria in 1959. As a firm, HK Enamelware Factory was dissolved in 1984.

Frank C.Y. Tsu and T.Y. Hsu of HK Enamelware Factory with representatives of Royal Interocean Lines in 1974. (RIL staff newsletter, 1974)

This article was first posted on 15th February 2019.

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