This article started life as Q+A 28. New information – see IDJ Jan 2016. Vicky Chan, Lamma resident, asks where Village Vehicles, more usually known as VVs (though there are apparently VWs) are made. She suggests they are so simple in design that the answer must be somewhere in Hong Kong. Is she right? And if so where exactly? They […]
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York Lo: Chow Deuk Sang and Aurora Chow When it comes to prominent HK jewelers with the surname Chow, the first two that comes to most people’s mind are Chow Tai Fook and Chow Sang Sang, which also happens to be the top two chains by the number of stores. From the 1940s to the 1960s, there were two other […]
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Hugh Farmer: My earlier article about early plans for trams on HK island stated that the official opening date was 30th July 1904. This is correct. However, The Hong Kong Daily Press of Monday, 15th Aug 1904 states that the full service of the Electric Tramway had begun two days before on Saturday the 13th. It mentions that the cars […]
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This article is the result of several people’s research into industrial development and other related topics in Sai Kung district. If you can provide information on any of the subjects below, or add to the list, it would be good to hear from you. I can then gradually add to this framework to provide a fuller picture with an acknowledgment […]
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York Lo: Fotoprint Service (浮圖攝影) Fotoprint on Stanley Street in 1959 on the right next to Mow Kie Ladies Tailor (ABC); Right: Fotoprint on D’Aguilar Street in 1965. (Gwulo) Fotoprint Service was a prominent distributor of photo supplies and provider of photofinishing service from the 1940s to the 1980s alongside several of the firms covered earlier such as Asia Photo […]
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Martyn Cornell has kindly given permission for extracts from his article, A Short History of Beer in Hong Kong, to be posted on our website. The article was published in the Journal of the Brewery History Society, Brewery History, Issue 156, 2012 Martyn has his own blog, Zythophile – Beer now and then, linked below. Despite its title the article is […]
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Stephen Davies rightly laments: Some of our maritime heritage, like the older lighthouses, are…gazetted monuments… but by far and away the majority of the maritime past that made Hong Kong what it is, from the historic dockyards, shipyards, wharves, jetties and basins…are dead, buried and for the most part forgotten. From a note attached to Stephen’s article, The Principal Datum: Some […]
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York Lo: K.K. Lam (林君傑) – the Rise and Fall of a Watch Band Merchant turned Speculator Left: K.K. Lam (Federation of HK Watch Trade & Industries); Right: opening of Ying Kit Stock Co in October 1972 (WKYP, 1972-10-30) Earlier in the group we have covered three HK industrialists whose high-profile disappearances captured the headlines in their respective decade – […]
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HF: Olyphant & Co. was a merchant trading house in 19th-century China. From its initial involvement there, the firm expanded into other countries including Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Olyphant & Co’s business dealings in Peru caused the company to collapse in 1878. The firm was founded in Canton by David WC Olyphant (1789-1851) and Charles N Talbot after their former employer, King […]
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Angela Chan recently posted a comment on our article, Kau Wa Keng Old Village, 九華徑 – recent photographs, which says that there were indeed small factories, namely making gloves and shoes, in the village as suggested in the article. Angela has kindly expanded on her initial comment with the following information and images: We had relatives and friends working at the glove […]
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