For latest updates please see items highlighted in blue. On 14th July 2020 images of Robert Rae Hutcheon and Shanghai were added. HF: We have been sent information about a couple of employees of the Asiatic Petroleum Company in China and one in the UK. We have also received requests for information about two more employees. I thought it might […]
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York Lo: Ruby (紅寶石) – Restaurant Empire from the 1950s to 1980s Left: The fa pai of Ruby Restaurant in Causeway Bay at its opening in 1966; Right: Ruby’s ad promoting its Mother’s Day special featuring pigeons and fruit punch at all five of its locations in 1984 (WKYP, 1984-5-9) From the 1950s to the 1980s, Ruby was one of […]
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Philip Edward Kenny has sent a link to a set of photos on Flikr of employees and equipment inside the Tyco (HK) “factory” building in 1976. He believes these photos were uploaded by Doug Price. And if you are any of these people, or know who they are, it would be great to hear from you: Hugh Farmer indhhk [at] gmail […]
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Stephen Davies: The interesting thing about Cosmopolitan Dock – unique in HK and quite uncommon elsewhere – is that it was designed from the outset as two docks in one; an inner and an outer. The dock had a fat, slightly shorter outer part (212 x 100 feet) and a slightly narrower, slightly longer inner part (234 x 83 feet – […]
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York Lo: Lee Seng Heng (李成興魚露): King of Fish Sauce Left: Lee Seng Heng’s Kingfisher trademark featuring medals it won in the 1920s and 1930s. (IP Australia); Right: recent ad for Lee Seng Heng fish sauce (Yue Yick Food Industries) Earlier on the website, we covered many HK sauce makers which have a long history of over a century. Lee […]
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HF: Our recently posted biography, Dadabhoy Rustomjee Banaji and Maneckjee Rustomjee Banaji, the brothers behind the Canton and Hong Kong trading firm, D. & M. Rustomjee, mentions that the brothers “operated a hugely profitable firm called D. & M. Rustomjee, based first in Canton and later in Hong Kong.” I am looking for information about, and images of, this company […]
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HF: It was never mined here. So this article is an initial attempt to put together what little we have about importing coal and how it was used in Hong Kong: transport, manufacturing, utilities, shipping, domestically…can you add to this article? I have also included charcoal and for general interest information about and images of China and Taiwan/Formosa on these […]
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York Lo: Sang Lee & Co (生利建築) – leading contractor from the 1900s to 1950s From the 1900s to the 1950s, Sang Lee was one of the leading building contractors in HK responsible for many notable public projects such as the old GPO Building and the Tai Tam Tuk Reservoir which were completed in the 1910s and the massive Wanchai […]
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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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Brian Edgar: 1938 was an important year in the modernisation of baking in Hong Kong. In November Lane, Crawford moved to a fully mechanised facility in the Happy Valley section of Stubbs Road – my father, Thomas Edgar, had become the company’s bakery manager in the spring, probably to oversee the move from Wanchai (“see 1” below). But it seems […]
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