HF: “Gas Works Explosion.—At 11.05 a.m. on the morning of 14th May, 1934 a large gasometer with a capacity of 500,000 cubic feet belonging to the Hong Kong and China Gas Company, Limited, at West Point exploded, the flaming gas setting light to houses in Clarence Terrace, Chun Sing Street and Yu On Terrace. Within two hours the fire was […]
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A brief desciption of the well known Duddell Street Gas lamps in an AMO Declared Monuments online document suggests the lamps were “Two-light Rochester models made by Suggs and Co., the gas lamps were designed in a shorter length than was standard at the time in order to allow them to be mounted on the parapets of the steps. Originally […]
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IDJ has sent the article below, published in Flight International (1) of 22nd February 1968. This provides additional information to our already posted piece on the airline Lloyd International Airways Ltd, posted in December 2017, linked below. IDJ says the CAB mentioned in the extracts below is the Civil Aeronautics Board an agency of the federal government of the United States, […]
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York Lo: M.C. Oung (翁明昌) – the Shanghainese tycoon in Taiwan and his industrial enterprises in Hong Kong Left: M. C. Oung (right) receiving a medal from KMT Air Force chief Lai Ming-tang; M.C. Oung (third from the left) transiting through HK in his 1960 trip to the US as head of Chia Hsin Cement. He was welcomed by his […]
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HF: While walking up Hatton Road above the University of Hong Kong, on The Peak on Monday 22nd January 2018, I came across the signs below about the Myrobalan tree, also known as Emblic and Yau Kam Chi or Phyllanthus emblica (Euphorbiaceae). This can be added to our small but growing list of HK trees that were traditionally used to […]
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York Lo: Wah Mei Electric – Leading Distributor of Electronics from the 1920s to 1960s and related firms Left: Wah Mei ad in 1927 (8th Far East Games brochure); Right: the old Wah Mei store in between Sunlight Hing Kee and Kin Ming Radio on Des Voeux Road Central Wah Mei Electric was one of the oldest and largest distributor […]
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The following article has been extracted from the Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography. The publisher HK University Press, has given permission for it to be posted here. The following article about John Bell-Irving was written by Libby Halliday Palin and first published in the Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography, edited by May Holdsworth and Christopher Munn. The publisher, HK University Press, has […]
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“If you missed the last Star Ferry at 1:30am, [back in the 1960s] you could hire a walla-walla (jip6 laa1 jip6 laa1 嘩啦嘩啦), a kind of small motorised water taxi that plied the waters between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. “The name came from the sound of the boats when they were cruising,” says retired journalist Li Ping-sum,who grew up in Yau Ma Tei. […]
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York Lo: Star Power: E. Penn Industrial Manufactory (興華實業) and “Butterfly” (胡蝶牌) Vacuum Flasks and Torch Cases Left: the wedding of Eugene Penn and Butterfly Wu in Shanghai in 1935. The maid of honor was Koo Lan-kung (顾兰君) and bridesmaid Yuan Mei-yun (袁美雲); flower girls were Wu Yun-yun and Lo Siu-tik, and ringbearer Lai Hang (黎铿, son of Lai Man-wai, […]
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Elizabeth Ride has sent BAAG Report KWIZ #67 , dated 22nd September 1944, and noted earlier: After KWIZ #4, the Naval section is not included in the AWM papers, and does not appear again until KWIZ #66, and then in a slightly different format. HF: I am afraid because of time constraints I am no longer able to summarize and […]
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