York Lo: Founding Fathers of the HK Fur Industry: Stephen Fong of Siberian Fur and Michael Sun of Hong Kong Fur For a city with a sub-tropical climate, Hong Kong seems an unlikely place to emerge as the world’s biggest exporter of fine fur garments and accessories with export sales of over HK$2.5 billion and local sales of HK$125 mil […]
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York Lo: Sik Yuen Co Ltd (錫元膠廠) – Maker of Dunlop Rubber Shoes in HK Left: Sik Yuen Co ad in 1962 promoting its Dunlop shoes (WahKiuYat Po 1962-6-5); Right: the two principals of Sik Yuen – S.N. Chau (centre) and D.Y. Pong (right) with Fung Hon-chu at a HK Cotton Merchants Association function in 1961. (WKYP, 1961-6-22) Earlier in […]
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York Lo: Far East Flour Mills (遠東麵粉廠) Far East Flour Mill when it was first completed in 1967 (WKYP, 1967-7-11) Earlier on the website I covered three flour mills which emerged in HK in the 1950s and 1960s – namely Hong Kong, Kowloon and HK Food Products. The last one to cover is Far East Flour Mills, which was opened […]
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Nicholas Kitto has sent in a PDF file of the book: Corporate Behaviour and Political Risk: Dutch Companies in China 1903-1941 by Frans-Paul van der Putten. This was freely downloadable from the Leiden University website. Unfortunately the images are absent. HF: The book covers in some detail a variety of Dutch concerns in China. Namely:- Chapter 2 Banking: Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (NHM) […]
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York Lo: Famous HK Tailors (Part Two) – the British (Sayle, William Powell, Diss Bros, James. T. Shaw and Mackintosh’s) and the Indians (Tajmahal’s, Mohan’s, Harilela’s, J. Kima, Raja and Sam’s) The second groups of tailors to be covered in this series about prominent HK tailors are the British and the Indians. THE BRITISH Although currently there are no major […]
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HF: I took these photos of the HK- China Concrete Company Yau Tong batching plant on 25th September 2014. It’s stretching things to say this was a visit as I didn’t actually go inside the plant or speak to anyone there. Still if you haven’t seen one of the locations where HK’s beloved concrete is mixed you might be interested […]
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James Chan: Frank Bowden was born in Exeter, England on 30th January 1848. In the early 1870s he came to Hong Kong. By 1872, when only 24, he had made a fortune in the local stock market. It would be of interest to have further details about Bowden’s time here. In particular how he made his fortune at that time […]
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York Lo: United Rubber Works (聯合膠廠) United Rubber Works ad in 1949 (HK Scouting Gazette, 1949) United Rubber Works was one of the five biggest rubber product manufacturers in HK in the late 1940s with ties to several figures discussed earlier in different articles. Formed in 1946 (although the firm was not incorporated until March 1947) with HK$1 million in […]
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Elizabeth Ride has sent this BAAG report. This suggests that during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, Taikoo Sugar Refinery became Hong Kong Sugar Refinery. Kweilin Weekly Intelligence Summary #66, 15.9.1944. HF: During WW2 Taikoo Sugar Refinery was badly damaged. In 1947/48, it was decided to rehabilitate the plant. HK Memory Project This article was first posted on 1st January […]
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York Lo: S.S. Yu (虞兆興): King of Menthol and Camphor The three founders of Yung Zeng: S.S. Yu (left), Kao Pei-liang (center) and Fang Yexian (right). Source: 現代實業家(1935), p 153, p243 and p105 As profiled in many articles on the Group’s website, Shanghainese industrialists played important roles in the post-War industrial development in Hong Kong, most notably in textiles but […]
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