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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York Lo: T.B. Hwang and Benny Tang Hwang Tiong-beng (hereafter referred to as “T.B. Hwang”) was a prominent figure in the shipping and shipbuilding business in the 1960s and 1970s while Benny Tang Kar-hung, the brother of Hwang’s daughter in law was a key figure in the HK construction industry and local football circle from the 1970s to the 1990s. […]
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Stephen Davies: Further information about the Sainam and her sister ship the Nanning. I now know that the owner, Sai Hing Steam Ship Co., was originally a Chinese firm offering Canton to Macao river ferry services, formed as a syndicate to buy four ex-Swire ships (see SCMP, 9th November 1917, p.11) – the ships were the Nanning, Sainam, San Ui and Lin […]
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York Lo: Camera Men: Shum Ming-hin and Yuen Kang-chuen The history of photography in Hong Kong would not be complete without the profiles of two prominent figures in the camera business – Shum Ming-hin, whose A. Sek & Co was a leading distributor of photographic equipment in HK from the 1920s to the 1960s and his son in law Yuen […]
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IDJ has sent a series of articles about managers at Taikoo Dockyard: The first manager, appointed in 1907, was Philip Forster Nicholson, who was born at West Bolden near Sunderland in 1872, his father being a North East Coast shipowner. In 1898 he joined R.& W. Hawthorne Leslie & Co., Ltd, and in 1902 was appointed their Shipyard Manager at […]
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York Lo: The Kwan family and Yue Ying Can Manufacturing and Asia Can Co Left: Yue Ying and Asia Can co-founder Y.P. Kwan (WKYP, 1963-4-3); Right: profile of Yue Ying Can Manufacturing in 1934 (HK Chinese Factories Survey, 1934) Earlier on the website we covered the Shang family of China Can Company. Another key player and pioneer in the HK […]
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Michele Cottage has kindly sent the photograph below and the following information: The photo below is of Mr and Mrs T S Wong Managing Director of Amoy Canning Hong Kong and Singapore. My grandfather is standing between them. Believed to be taken late in the 1930s or early 1940s in Hong Kong York Lo adds: Very precious picture! Wong (1912-1978) […]
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