HF: A visit on 6th Feb 2014 to the Hong Kong Museum of History led to the following information about The Hongkong Cotton-Spinning, Weaving and Dyeing Company Ltd 1898 -1914. This was the first major cotton spinning company in Hong Kong and was formed in 1898 by Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co Ltd. (see article below). A photograph of the works […]
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Roy Eric Xavier, Director, Portuguese and Macanese Studies Project at the University of California, Berkeley, USA has kindly granted permission to reproduce the following article. Roy also runs the absorbing website Far Eastern Currents which covers a wide range of research into the Macanese Diaspora especially in Macau and Hong Kong. Roy’s article and website are both linked below as are two of our […]
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IDJ has dug into his extensive HK transport files again. This time the subject is Pearl River Heliports, concentrating on those in HK and Macau extracted from an article published in the bi-monthly UK magazine, Airports of the World published by Key Publishing. The captions accompanying the images are those used in the original magazine article. Pearl River Heliports […]
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IDJ: Air Cushion Hovercraft in Hong Kong Many HK residents will recall the HYF’s and Discovery Bay rigid side-wall hovercraft racing through the harbour during the 1980s and 1990s. However, true air-cushion hovercraft came to Hong Kong in the late 1960s or early 1970s, introduced by amateur owners and based at the Far East Flying Training School at Kai Tak. […]
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HF: Can anyone supply further information about The Oriental Construction Company which the 1905 advert below says were Consulting and Supervising Engineers and Contractors with branches in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Manila. The ad says the company were specialists in railways, mines, water supplies, reinforced concrete and concrete piles. Their 1905 Hong Kong office was in the Alexandra Buildings. This […]
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“Only one person has ever been given a jail sentence – and that was suspended – since incarceration was included in the industrial safety law in 1989, even though hundreds of workers have been killed while transforming Hong Kong into a modern city. The confirmation by the Labour Department prompted calls from labour activists for Hong Kong to learn from […]
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According to Claire Grey’s excellent family history website, linked below, W R Loxley and Company (China) Ltd was established in Hong Kong in 1872 and… ‘…J. M. Beattie bought it possibly in 1900. Later two brothers: A. Beattie and M. P. Beattie joined the firm. The business was sold to J. A. Russell and D. O. Russell in 1919 and under the agreement A. Beattie […]
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HF: The image below shows the developing Tsuen Wan in the foreground, the Caltex oil storage depot in the background with a hill top cemetery above. JKW: I can confirm this, because I grew up here. My father worked for Caltex as a civil engineer supervising work at the oil terminal, as he called it, from 1973 to 1978. We […]
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Hong Kong has had seemingly hundreds of trading agents. They are of interest in their own right but also often offer an introduction to companies of a more directly industrial nature. This advert from 1950 is for the agent Tsang & Company with two initials. The second is C but what was the first, H,M,K or? York Lo: I believe […]
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HF: Our article, Tung Tai Tseung Kee & Company, 同泰祥記, engineers and shipbuilders, 1897 to c1945, mentions “The proprietor of the firm, Mr Lan Fat, was born in San On Province, China, received his education in Hongkong, and was afterwards apprenticed as a draughtsman to Messrs. Fenwick & Co. for nine years. He was then for nearly two years engineer […]
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