Karl Spencer has contacted the Group. He says, “I am a collector of old HK uniform buttons and am looking for early buttons from the KCR (Kowloon-Canton Railway) and HK Tramways. I have attached photos of buttons I am trying to find. If anyone has any other interesting early buttons then I would be happy to hear from them.” Karl […]
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York Lo: Fred Westphal – the American Oil Taipan from New Orleans who helped to power Hong Kong Fred Westphal (right) with Governor Sir David Trench (centre) and Lord Lawrence Kadoorie (left) at the opening of Peninsula Electric Power’s Tsing Yi power station in 1969. Source: HK Heritage On October 11, 2016, Frederick Clement Westphal Jr passed away in his native […]
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A 19th Century Company Town in North Point, Hong Kong By Jennifer Field Lang In 1881, Butterfield and Swire (the Far Eastern branch of the British trading firm John Swire and Sons) established the Taikoo Sugar Refinery in Hong Kong. John Swire (1793-1847) the son of a Halifax cloth merchant founded the general merchant trading company in 1816 in Liverpool, […]
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York Lo: The Queen of Pens – Holia Chow and Rox Industrial In the 1960s, Hong Kong had a pen manufacturer by the name of Rox Industrial (樂士實業), which made a variety of writing instruments including ballpoint pens, fountain pens, markers, sign pens and mechanical pencils. Although Rox focused on the export market, the firm was known locally as it […]
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Thanks to IDJ for sending the following newspaper article titled New Year Honours for H.K. Residents. Of particular interest is mention of U Tat-chee, “genial Ginger King and Vice-Chairman of the Hong Kong Manufacturers Union, who becomes an officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil Division).” HF: I have retyped a further extract from the original article and […]
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Hong Kong’s neon-drenched streets were just one aspect of his home that Justin Wong missed while studying in Canada. A lover of cinema, he would become nostalgic for the city whose urban landscape has been beautifully evoked and captured in films such as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) and Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express (1994)(1) As a fast-growing metropolis, Hong Kong always arouses people’s longing and […]
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York Lo: Spear and Yips – Pioneers of the HK Shirt Industry Before the war, shirts in Hong Kong were dominated by imported brands from overseas (e.g. Arrow Shirt from America) or the mainland (e.g. Smart Shirt and 555 Shirt from Shanghai). The first two domestic shirt brands to emerge in the post War period were Spear Shirt (槍牌恤) and […]
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York Lo: Union (V-Tex) Shirts (伊人恤) – the Rise and Fall of an Iconic Hong Kong Brand Left: Close up view of the Union V-Tex booth at the 23rd HK Products Expo in 1966. Right: Governor David Trench (lower right with the hat and glasses) walking by the booths of Union V-Tex (left) and Pak Fah Yeow (right) at the same […]
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IDJ has sent the following newspaper article which mentions the early history of the company. Watsons still exists today in Hong Kong, around 181 years since it started out. HF: I have retyped this to increase legibility and searches. MESSRS A.S. WATSON & COMPANY CELEBRATE 100th anniversary A brief outline of the early history of the Company, which celebrated its […]
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Tymon Mellor: Looking at some old mapping of Tuen Mun I noted a ceramics factory in the area, see below: This looks quite a factory as the mapping indicates rails, so I suspect it is more likely to be a brick works that is mentioned in the early alignment studies (1905) for the KCRC: “There is one brick works in the […]
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