HF/Tymon Mellor: “Zonta White House (崇德家福軒) is a western house standing on the summit of a hill overlooking Tai Po Road. It was constructed in 1906 for the accommodation of the managerial staff engaged on the construction of the Kowloon-Canton Railway (九廣鐵路). The house and the adjacent guest bungalow and servants’ quarters sit in six acres of grounds close to […]
» Read more
“Lammert the auctioneers have a long history in Hong Kong. Their first association in Hong Kong was with the watchmaking trade. The transition form the watch to the auction hammer occurred as follows. One of the assistants in the watchmaking shop of Charles Weiss in 1852 was M Zobel. He is listed as a watchmaker from 1853 to 1855. In […]
» Read more
Nathan Laurent, who lives in Queensland, Australia, has an interest in industrial history. HF: Nathan contacted me “to see if your researchers know anything about a metal manufacturing business that used the name Kwok Hing. My father has a metal working lathe of this brand made in Hong Kong which seems to be from the 1950s.” Below is a picture taken […]
» Read more
Carles Brasó Broggi: Regarding Hugh Farmer’s request for details about Nanyang Cotton Mill, let me add some information about this firm. The following text appeared in “Hong Kong Textile Annual” published by the Hong Kong Cotton Merchants Association in 1956 (pp. 46-47). It gives an insight into the company and the mill proving two hypotheses suggested in previous posts by […]
» Read more
Colin Davidson: Salt production is one of the earliest ‘industrial’ activities recorded in Hong Kong. Records indicate that salt-working probably began here in the third century BC, more than two thousand years ago. Because of the high profits that could be made, the salt industry was controlled as an Imperial Monopoly. The earliest salt fields in the area were probably […]
» Read more
IDJ’s own photographs taken between 1996 and 1998 of factories and their chimneys in Kwai Chung. Works of Art! T This article was first posted on 3rd April 2014.
» Read more
York Lo: Chi-Chung Yin (C. C. Yin, 尹致中, 1902-1988) – King of Needles Born into a poor family in the farming village of Laiyang (萊陽) in Shandong Province in 1902, C. C. Yin started working at the age of 13 in nearby Japanese occupied Tsingtao (which was occupied by the Japanese between 1914 and 1922) as an office boy at a […]
» Read more
Hugh Farmer: JH Stewart Lockhart was Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong from 1895-1902. He wrote a report to the Colonial Office in London, reporting on “The New Territory” . This followed “The Convention between Great Britain and China respecting an Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong.” The report was published on the 8th Oct 1898. Paul Onslow has sent this […]
» Read more
HF: Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing using a printing press, a process by which many copies are produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker composes and locks movable type into the “bed” or “chase” of a press, inks it, and presses paper against it […]
» Read more
HF: Our recently posted article, Wong Kwong-tin, manager of the Kai Tak Company, Managing Director of the Kai Tak Motor Bus Company, linked below, says “he is also pioneer Managing Director of the Kai Tak Motor Bus Company, which has been a most important factor in, and largely responsible for, the development of the Kowloon Peninsula.” Here are a few […]
» Read more