Rob Weir: The following information comes from War Office (WO) and Foreign Office (FO) documents held at The National Archives at Kew, London, UK. These notes were basically made “in passing” as a diversion to my main interests and so are fairly rough. I’ve put them in ascending date order from the first reference I found until the last. This doesn’t mean there […]
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Tymon Mellor: The year of 1963 was an exceptionally difficult for water supply in Hong Kong. For the fourteen months between November, 1962 and December, 1963, the total rainfall was only 901mm, as compared with an average expectation of 2,220mm. Severe restrictions were imposed on water consumption with the house supplied service being cut to four hours every fourth day. […]
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The SCMP of 18th April 2013 contained an article of interest. It reported that a Director of Audit’s report had found that sixteen public heritage sites either were not being maintained or had not been used for periods of up to twenty years. The audit considered it unsatisfactory that ten government-graded buildings had been left unattended. One of the sites […]
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York Lo: Eastern Arts Lantern (東藝宮燈) Eastern Arts booth at the 1971 HK Products Expo. Source: HK Memory In the 1950s and 60s, HK industrialists leveraged the flexibility of plastic as a material and developed a wide variety of products ranging from toys, flowers, Christmas trees, buckets, plates to shoes and sandals and exported them all over the world. One […]
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HF: The Ma On Shan Iron Mine operated for 70 years between 1906-1976. Small-scale open cast mining was carried out between 1906-1949, with underground mining beginning in 1953. Mining had moved entirely underground by 1959. Major development work occurred in the 1960s, after all the reserves in the upper levels had been exhausted. In 1963, 5,458 metres of main tunnels […]
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HF: Elizabeth Ride has sent information about four Shipyards from BAAG reports made during the Japanese occupation. This information is of interest with regard to what was (or wasn’t ) happening in them in 1944. The first Taikoo Docks is well known. The other three much less so. Kwong Hip Lung Shipyard, Wing On Shing Shipyard and Tai Kok Tsui […]
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From Tai Ping Koon, which opened in 1860 and served Sun Yat-sen, to Gaylord Indian Restaurant, open since 1972, to the award-winning abalone served in Forum since 1977, these restaurants have stood the test of time. In a city where restaurants come and go with dizzying speed, those which have stood the test of time are few and far between. […]
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HF: Chao Kuang Piu (24th November 1920 – 12 March 2021) was a Hong Kong based Chinese industrialist, sometimes referred to as Hong Kong’s ”Wool Magnate” given his involvement in Hong Kong’s garment industry. He was one of the co-founders of Dragonair, Hong Kong’s first Chinese owned airline, which was subsequently acquired by Cathay Pacific. Chao was born on 24th […]
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At the end of September 2015, Julian Kwong joined a group visiting the Dairy Farm estate at Pokfulam. He took several photos of structures at the farm and has provided a brief description of what each image shows. This map shows the farm, its buildings and other structures. (1) Thanks to Paul Onslow for providing it. See Paul’s article, The Dairy Farm […]
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Tymon Mellor: The Lion Rock Tunnels are a key part of the Hong Kong road network, linking Kowloon to the New Territories, allowing goods and people to move across the territory. However, they were not originally conceived to serve vehicular traffic but as tunnels to carry large diameter water mains from the Shatin Treatment works to new service reservoirs in […]
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