HF: With thanks to moddsey for pointing out a couple of sources. The banking industry began in Hong Kong in 1845 with the opening of a branch of the Oriental Banking Corporation, which had its headquarters in India. This Bank was also the first bank in Hong Kong to issue banknotes when in 1847 “it put in circulation $56,000 worth of […]
» Read more
Many thanks to IDJ for sending in this article. As he says, a company ahead of its time! HF: The article was pretty legible but I thought I would retype it anyway. Any further information about, or image of the company would be very useful. There has recently been started in Hong Kong an industry which should prove of enormous […]
» Read more
Latest information in red. HF: Tymon Mellor has sent this extract from a longer Pathe film from 1953. It shows the lower end of a quarry adjacent to a road. Here a group of about twenty men and women are undergoing the final ardous process of breaking stones into aggregrate sized pieces using a variety of tools. Can someone identify exactly […]
» Read more
York Lo: Howah, Blue Heaven and BG: three key players in the post-war HK lighting industry With the housing and hotel/restaurant boom in the 1960s and 1970s, lighting products such as lamps and chandeliers became a huge business in Hong Kong and like the wallpaper industry covered earlier in another article, majority of the products were imported from the US […]
» Read more
HF: Magazine Island (火藥洲; Fo Yeuk Chau), originally known as One Tree Island (一木島) is located off the southwest coast of Hong Kong Island, and off the northwestern tip of Ap Lei Chau. Administratively, it is part of Southern District. The former Magazine Building on Magazine Island is now a Grade Three Historic Building. It was built by the British Dynamite Company, which later […]
» Read more
HF: One of my first memories of arriving in Hong Kong in 1989 was the smell of fish ball stalls in Causeway Bay. Unfamiliar food being cooked in oil that never seemed to be changed. Industrial strength. And real Dai Pai Dongs. Real in that all the equipment – cookers, gas bottles, tables, chairs, food and drinks arrived by trolley […]
» Read more
York Lo: Chan Chart-man (陳策文) – Developer and King of Pawnshops In March 2013, Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit Holdings became the first operator of pawnshops to go public in HK. Its founder Chan Chart-man had been involved in property development since the 1960s and although a relative newcomer in the centuries-old pawnshop industry, he and his family built the largest […]
» Read more
Dan Waters’ article, Hong Kong’s Hongs with Long Histories and British Connections, includes the following information about The Hongkong and China Gas Company. The article appeared in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong in 1990. Dan has written several articles directly for our Group. HF: The queries are mine. I have also added the images. “William Glen, who […]
» Read more
York Lo: Richard C.K. Chan (陳卓堅): timber baron, shipping tycoon and stamp collector Left: Richard C.K. Chan (standing) delivering a speech to the press as head of the Timber Guild in 1962. To his left were Wong Shui-leung of Kwong Chan Timber, Kan Chi-nam of Wing Tai Cheung and Leung Kam-tong of Hip Shing Timber (WKYP, 1962-12-18); right: cover of […]
» Read more
HF: Sent in by IDJ and posted here 81 years to the day after first being published in 1939. I am a little unsure of the spelling of one shipping company mentioned, indicated by [?] and would be grateful to be informed of any errors I have made in retyping the original article. Hongkong Shipyards Among World’s Busiest THE TOTAL […]
» Read more