HF: We have several articles about the Asiatic Petroleum Company (linked below) which was based in China. This was a joint venture between the Shell and Royal Dutch oil companies and was founded in 1903. It operated in Asia in the early 20th century with its corporate headquarters on The Bund, in Shanghai. Here is the Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company’s […]
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New information added by Nahaha Lau. 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 […]
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HF: Cheng Yum Kwai was born in 1947 in Xiamen. When he moved to Hong Kong with his family the following year, his father was working in Amoy Canning Corporation Ltd’s (Amoy’s) building department. The family subsequently lived in an Amoy-own Ngau Tau Kok village house. Cheng Yum Kwai was educated at Amoy Workers’ Children School and Bethel High School, dropping […]
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York Lo’s article, Peter H.T. Woo – Father of the Hong Kong Electronics Industry, shows the close connection between the electronics industry in Japan and Hong Kong in the late 1950s. York writes, In March 1958 Peter Woo founded Champagne Engineering Corporation Ltd and began assembling transistor radios in Hong Kong using Japanese transistors, making Champagne the first electronics firm […]
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HF: Sam Kwong Weaving Factory was founded in 1928. The factory was located at 374 Castle Peak Road in Cheung Sha Wan, and was of a moderately large scale with a gross floor area of some 16,000 sq. ft. (1) Elizabeth Ride has sent the following brief extract from BAAG report KWIZ#77 15.12.44. Mak Ho Yin has kindly attempted to translate the […]
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HF: Fung Keong Rubber Manufactory Co. was founded in 1925 by a Nanyang Chinese Mr. Fung Keong to manufacture and sell rubber shoes and rubber products. I believe it was the oldest such factory in Hong Kong. This extract provides an insight into life as a female outworker with the company in the 1930s: Cheng Kwai Ying, female, spinster, age 22, outworker, […]
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HF: Shewan, Tomes & Co. was one of the leading trading companies in Hong Kong and China during the late 19th and early 20th century. When Russell & Co., then one of the largest mercantile firms in the Far East, went out of business in 1891, former employees Scotsman Robert Shewan and Englishman Charles Alexander Tomes took over the remains of the operation and changed […]
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HF: Victor Sit Fung Sheun wrote his BA dissertation in 1969 on a subject of great interest. Namely the enormous changes that were taking place in a number of villages in the valley between Castle Peak (ie Tuen Mun) and Yuen Long. The area had been agricultural but by the end of the 60s a large number of factories had […]
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Can you provide more information about Bosco Radio Corp., the Gardner brothers or “Kyoei” company, the latter particularly pre-WW2 and during? Elizabeth Ride has sent this BAAG report. She notes: the page you originally posted [ie up to Post War Activities] was one of two of a document of which the second page was ‘restricted’ (withheld) in the BAAG papers by […]
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HF: Picture postcards are found almost wherever tourists visit in Hong Kong. I wonder how long they will continue to be sold given that surely all visitors today arrive with cameras, iPhones etc. The history of HK ‘made’ postcards was comparatively recent, a full fifty years after the colony came into being according to these two sources. A distinction has to […]
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