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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Hugh Farmer: These pages from a HK government publication of December 1959 describe changes in the the manufacture of umbrellas in Hong Kong. Pre WW2 almost all parts were imported, by the time of this report however, at least some were being produced here. The second page shows the value of exported umbrellas to many countries worldwide. It’s interesting for at least […]
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Double click to magnify twice. Thanks to Carles Brasó Broggi for this image of South Sea Textile Mills which comes from an undated Annual Report from the 1960s. The text reads “Covering an area of about 18 acres, the premises of The South Sea Textiles Mills are situated in the New Territories of the Kowloon Peninsula, about 9½ miles from the island […]
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HF: “This industry [porcelain decoration] is quite important in Ping Chau, and there are five such factories there. The porcelain comes from Japan, and occasionally from Kiangsi. When the goods arrive, there are no designs on them, and the pieces are unpacked so that designs are painted on them by hand and later taken to the clints to seal them […]
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Shiu Wing Steel Limited was briefly mentioned in Newsletter 8 as the only steel rolling mill currently in Hong Kong and located at Tap Shek Kok, Tuen Mun. Before relocating to its present position the company was in Junk Bay, present day Tseung Kwan O, from 1958 to 1991. IDJ provides interesting information about the Shiu Wing Steel Company’s time in Junk Bay. […]
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