HF: There is a great deal out there about Diana Cameras but almost nothing on where they were made apart from at Great Wall Plastics Factory, Kowloon Bay starting in 1955. Or ironically photographs of the factory, production, workers etc. Can you tell us more about Great Wall Plastics Factory and the manufacturing of Holga Cameras in Hong Kong? During […]
» Read more
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 […]
» Read more
Dan Waters writes: My first recollection of the name, ‘Hong Kong’, was as a teenager in the early 1930s. My uncle was a warrant officer in the British army and, for a time, he was stationed in India. Every Christmas a large, colourful blue-and-white porcelain jar of preserved ginger would arrive at our home in Norfolk, England. This had been […]
» Read more
HF: The Century Centre industrial building is at 1 Ping Ha Road, Ping Shan in Yuen Long District. It’s a large building, despite being only two storeys, as can been seen by the size of the roof. So a rather unusual design. It is still in use, access was welcomed by a worker having a cigarette outside one of the […]
» Read more
Elizabeth Ride has sent these BAAG reports including the map about Hip Tung Wo Engineering Works. Thanks to Mark Regan for retyping the reports out – some of which are barely legible as can be seen with the first one. If you could help the Group by doing the occasional typing please contact us. This also aids reader’s ability to search. There […]
» Read more
Robin Selby has sent a link to Transport by Aerial Ropeways, published in what appears to be a 1899 reprint of a special edition of the Engineering Times, London. Robin had previously been in contact about his great-uncle Thomas Selby (1866-1937) who was at one time mate of the Cutty Sark, captain of another ship, went on to work for the The Indo-China Steam […]
» Read more
HF: In his book, The Atlas: Archaeology of an Imaginary City, a mixture of fact and fiction about Hong Kong in the past and future, Dung Kai Cheung, Louis, writes about Sugar Street (糖街) in Causeway Bay. Dung recounts the local legend that the Hong Kong Mint, based there from 1866 to 1868, failed because, in spite of melted silver being […]
» Read more
Yolande van Daatselaar from Delft in the Netherlands has recently been in touch. She says she is the proud owner of a beautiful camphorwood chest, with pearl inlay, bought by her grandfather in Hong Kong during one of his trips as a sailor on the Holland Amerika Line some time between 1946 and 1960. She doesn’t know exactly when. Yolande wonders […]
» Read more
Robert Taylor was manager of the Green Island Cement Company from about the late 1920s until the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and again for a short period after its liberation. He was born on 2nd June 1888 and died in January 1974 in his 86th year. Immediately prior to the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong he was a volunteer […]
» Read more
HF: The company was founded in 1949 as the Star Brush Factory and later renamed Star Industrial Company Ltd. In the year it started it participated in the 7th Exhibition of Chinese Products with a booth mainly displaying brush products including toothbrushes, hair combs and coat brushes. (1) Within a decade [of its founding], Star had expanded its line to include […]
» Read more