Mary Anne Le Bas has sent an SCMP article, Six home-grown Hong Kong trades at risk of dying out, published on 21st June 2015. The fifth of these is a product that has been around for around 200 years. The company was founded by current manager Yuen Yee Lum’s great-great-grandfather in Guangzhou, in 1835. Mr Yuen believes his is the last company making […]
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HF: Many thanks to IDJ for sending this newspaper article about the preserved ginger industry in Hong Kong in 1947. The article was published in the Hong Kong Sunday Herald of 7th June 1947. I’m not sure if ginger was HK’s oldest industry with both the manufacturing of salt from sea water and quarrying of rock being very old. However, […]
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The Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography has an article about Jehangir Hormusjee Ruttonjee b.1880, Balsar, India d.10th February 1960 in Hong Kong, written by Sooni Shroff-Gander. The following are extracts from this: Summoned by his father Hormusjee Rottonjee, a trader in wines, spirits and provisions in Hong Kong since 1884, Jehangir Hormusjee Ruttonjee arrived in the colony at the age of 12 […]
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York Lo: South China Tea Corporation (華南茶業) and “Cocktail Tea” (鷄尾茶) Left: Outdoor advertising for South China Tea’s “Cocktail” covering the building which housed the Mayfair Studio in Kowloon (likely 3 Saigon Street); Right: a South China Tea Corp’s “China Beauty” Chinese green tea tin (Worthpoint) While the family of Southeast Asian tycoon Eu Tong-sen might be best known in […]
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HF: Here’s another in our series of Ginger Factories from the late 19th century and early 20th. I cannot find out much more about this company and would like to know when it was established. Also about Wong Chi Chau mentioned in this article. And the company of which he was the compradore of, Messrs. Alvares & Co. The article […]
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Martyn Cornell has kindly given permission for extracts from his article, A Short History of Beer in Hong Kong, to be posted on our website. The article was published in the Journal of the Brewery History Society, Brewery History, Issue 156, 2012 Martyn has his own blog, Zythophile – Beer now and then, linked below. Despite its title the article is […]
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York Lo: Kowloon Confectionery & Bakery Co (九龍糖果公司) “Eat More Bread” ad for Kowloon Confectionery in 1941 (A Century of Commerce) The Kowloon Confectionery & Bakery Co was one of leading confectionery firms and bakeries in Hong Kong from the 1920s to the 1960s but has since faded into history. Sam Shong-won (岑崇運, 1895-1969), the founder of Kowloon Confectionery, went […]
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Brook Antony Bernacchi (貝納褀) b. 22nd January 1922 d. 22nd September 1996, was born in London and arrived in Hong Kong in 1945 as advisor to Major General FW Festing. “One of Hong Kong’s early democrats, he was an important moderate political voice in the colony from the 1950s to the 1970s” . (1) “In 1947 Bernacchi bought 200 acres […]
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Brian Edgar’s blog, linked below, is about the experiences of his parents Thomas and Evelina Edgar in Hong Kong 1941-1945. The photograph shown on the Home page is of their wedding on the 29th June 1942. Thomas was a baker and worked in Hong Kong for the Lane Crawford, Garden and Ching Loong bakeries. Here we are concerned with the Lane Crawford […]
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HF: Any further information about this company or others involved in producing alcohol in HK, especially Chinese ones, would be welcomed. (see links below) While walking down Clear Water Bay Road on 21st Feb 2015 I glanced down a rather rough side road, saw a small, industrial looking building and decided to investigate. At the start of the road was a […]
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