York Lo: Evergreen Motion Picture (永茂電影企業) Left: poster for Evergreen’s “Action Speaks Louder than Words” in 1955 starring Sheung Kwun Kwan-wai and SzemaWah Lung; Right: Poster for Evergreen’s “Honor Thy Father and Mother” in 1953 starring Sheung Kwun Kwan-wai and Cheung Ying-tsoi Evergreen Motion Picture was one of the eight leading independent movie production companies in the 1950s which produced […]
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IDJ has kindly sent the following newspaper article about the Hong Kong (or sometimes Hongkong) Rope Manufacturing Company planning a rope producing factory in Singapore. Thanks to SCT for proofreading the retyped article. That work is now going ahead with the establishment of a rope works in Singapore was disclosed by Mr G.E. Marden, MC, in his statement to shareholders […]
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York Lo: Dickson Construction (德信建築) Signing of a construction contract between Lingnan and Dickson in 1975. Left to right seated: architect Arthur C.S. Kwok (郭志舜), Lingnan chairman Paul S. Lam (林秀樑), Dickson chairman T.T. Yik, Lingnan trustee Edward TT Chan (陳德泰, see article). Standing left to right: Lingnan secretary Yuen Siu-kong (阮兆剛), Levett& Bailey’s Lee Yiu-sang (李堯生),Lingnan trustee Wai Kee-kau […]
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Douglas Lapraik arrived in Hong Kong in 1842 in apparently somewhat straitened circumstances from Macau. Things changed for the colourful Mr Lapraik. In 1863, together with Thomas Sutherland and Jardine, Matheson & Co,. he co-founded the Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company (Kowloon Docks) which at its peak was the largest shipyard in Asia. The following article has been extracted from […]
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York Lo: The King of Shoes: Tse Family of Kam Shing and Silver Eagle Arthur Tse with some of his shoes in the 1990s From the 1960s to the 1990s, the family of TseHei (謝熹) earned the reputation of “King of Shoes” through the publicly listed Kam Shing and Silver Eagle, which went public in 1973 and 1992 respectively and […]
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Tymon Mellor: Hong Kong was built from stone and bricks, all held together with a cement mortar. All these materials were locally made using the natural resources Hong Kong could provide. The New Territories are rich in clay, which over the years has been used for pottery and brick manufacturing. The use of air dried bricks for house building was common, and fired bricks have […]
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York Lo: Texwood (德士活) and “Apple Jeans”(蘋果牌牛仔褲) In March 2020, Texwood closed its flagship Apple Jeans store on Argyle Street inMongkok after 35 years, leaving only one store in HK in Diamond Hill although the jeans giant remains a major player in the mainland. Founded in 1959, Texwood was one of the major local brands of jeans in HK along […]
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York Lo: Canton Brothers Rubber Co (廣東兄弟樹膠) – China’s and HK’s First Manufacturer of Rubber Shoes Left: Canton Bros poster, likely from the 1930s; Right: Canton Brothers Rubber ad in HK in 1941 (A Century of Commerce) Founded in Canton in 1919, Canton Brothers Rubber Co was the first rubber shoe manufacturer in China and opened its factory in Hong […]
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Tymon Mellor: Introduction The mine workings on the south-west slopes of Ma On Shan mountain are now no more than mere scars in the hillside, but in the middle of the last century, the mine provided employment for up to 6,000 people and supplied high grade iron ore and other minerals to the Japanese steel industry. This article describes the […]
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“With its outstanding record of safety and continuity, the Peak Tramways Company has always been conscious of the requirement to keep the Tramway’s operational heart in top shape. Surprisingly, since the beginning, the haulage plant has seen only one complete change – in 1926 when the original boilers and steam engine were replaced with an electrically-powered system.” Many thanks to […]
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