HF: Hong Kong’s early colonial developmental history is intertwined with maritime trade. Dockyards and shipbuilding thus became one of the earliest industries of the Colony. After 1841, Hong Kong’s first dockyard was located in East Point, Causeway Bay. In 1857, the Scottish entrepreneur John Lamont built the Lamont Dock in Aberdeen. By 1963, a few British firms combined a handful […]
» Read more
HF: The Star Ferry traces its origins to 1880 when Dorabjee Naorojee Mithaiwala, a Parsee cook, embarked on a new vocation. He began a ferry service across Victoria Harbour with his steamboat, the Morning Star. The fledgling service was known as the Kowloon Ferry Company.(1) Before the steam ferry service was first established, people crossed the harbour in flat bottomed […]
» Read more
HF: The Company in Hong Kong: “The Sperry Flour Company has been interested in the flour trade of the Colony for upwards of forty years—a period considerably longer than any other similar company—and during the whole of this time it has lost no opportunity of studying the requirements of Eastern buyers, with the object of pushing business throughout the […]
» Read more
York Lo: HK China Products and Cheung Wing Kee – Makers of Shrimp Noodles Earlier on the website, we covered several noodle manufacturers such as Hing Wah, Pak Kut, Tin Kee and Winner (maker of Doll instant noodles). Below are two other noodle manufacturers known for their shrimp noodles (蝦子麵), made from combining shrimp roe and flour. Hong Kong China […]
» Read more
HF with thanks to Mike T: The excellent website wrecksite lists 26 ships built at the HK & Whampoa Docks which were subsequently permanently disabled/sunk during World War 2. At the time of their demise these ships were Australian, British, Dutch, German, Japanese, Norwegian or Thai. The ships were lost because of:- “air-raid, foundered, gunfire-shelled, mined, ran aground (wrecked), scuttled […]
» Read more
York Lo: Teh Hu Steamship (德和輪船公司) Left: T.Y. Wu at an international shipping convention in Taipei in 1971 (National Repository of Cultural Heritage, Taiwan); Right: “New Teh Hu” on slip at the Taikoo Dockyard (presumably in the 1960s) Since 1949, Shanghainese shipowners had dominated the shipping industry in Hong Kong but while most are familiar with Y.K. Pao of Worldwide […]
» Read more
Tymon Mellor: On the 28th March, 1886, the first of many blasts was initiated at the Mui Wo silver mine. The owner, Mr Ho A Mei (see Part One of this article linked below) wanted to extract the galena ore to aid in the mineral processing of the richer ore from a Mainland mine of his. The mineral processing facility […]
» Read more
York Lo: Tung Mow Hides & Leather Factory(同茂皮廠) – pioneer of the HK leather industry Left: registration of the Elephant trademark by Tung Mow in 1933 (HK Government Reports); Right: Ho Chung-king speaking at the opening of the Tung Mow plant in Peng Chau in 1955 (WKYP, 1955-5-17) Founded in 1872, Tung Mow Hides & Leather Factory was a pioneer […]
» Read more
York Lo: Murjani – the Ups and Downs of a HK Garment Dynasty The history of the HK garment industry would not be complete without the profile of the Murjanis. Starting with a single shop in 1930, Bhagwandas Kewalram Murjani (B.K. Murjani) started one of the first and largest HK garment exporters to the US market in the 1950s. The family […]
» Read more
HF: Impressively named Carl Franz Adolph Otto Ingenohl was the owner of C. Ingenohl which operated cigar manufacturing companies in both the Philippines and Hong Kong under the trade name La Perla del Oriente. In Hong Kong Ingenohl ran the Orient Tobacco Manufactury Company which had a factory in Yau Ma Tei. I cannot find a image of Mr Ingenohl. Did […]
» Read more