HF: Tymon Mellor and IDJ have both sent the article, A Look Back : Civil Engineering in Hong Kong 1841-1941 written by C Michael Guilford. The preface says this was written as a contribution to mark the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers which was from 1947 to 1975, The Engineering Society of Hong Kong. […]
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HF with thanks to IDJ for the two adverts. The cable used in the Aerial Ropeway constructed to link Takoo Sugar Refinery and its Sanitarium was made by Bullivant & Co. which began as a UK company. William Munton Bullivant was an early innovator in the stranded wire cordage field, invented in the mid-19th century by German mining engineers in the […]
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The China Navigation Company’s parent company, John Swire & Sons Limited, had its origins in a small Liverpool trading house founded in 1816. In 1866, John Samuel Swire (1825-1898) opened his first Far Eastern agency in Shanghai, and in 1872 he founded The China Navigation Company to operate a modest fleet of paddle steamers on China’s Yangtze River. IDJ has […]
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York Lo: Oriental Pacific Mills (東亞太平) – the Largest Wool Textile Producer in HK Left: Oriental Pacific Mills at Sheung Kwai Chung in 1966 (Land Use Survey, HKU Libraries); Right: logo of Oriental Pacific Mills Oriental Pacific Mills (refer to as “OP”) was the largest worsted and woolen spinning group in HK which was formed in 1959 as the result […]
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Russell & Company ( 旗昌洋行) was the largest and most important American trading house in Qing dynasty China from 1842 to its closing in 1891. Samuel Russell founded Russell & Company in Canton, China, in 1824. Dealing mostly in silks, teas and opium, Russell & Company prospered, and by 1842, it had become the largest American trading house in China. Russell withdrew from the company in 1836 and returned to […]
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According to Claire Grey’s excellent family history website, linked below, W R Loxley and Company (China) Ltd was established in Hong Kong in 1872 and… ‘…J. M. Beattie bought it possibly in 1900. Later two brothers: A. Beattie and M. P. Beattie joined the firm. The business was sold to J. A. Russell and D. O. Russell in 1919 and under the agreement A. Beattie […]
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xxxx The prominent Towngas gasometer on the Aberdeen harbour front was erected in 1981 by Hong Kong United Engineering Ltd. though originally constructed by S Cutler & Sons of Telford, UK, on an unknown date. The Engineer 1968 Jan-Jun: Index has under Cutler & Sons Ltd., Samuel “Gasholder in steel tank ordered by Hong Kong & China Gas Co., C […]
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HF: “In 1910 Ernest James and Walter Reginald Hume (Hume Brothers) established the Humes’ Patent Cementiron Syndicate Limited, which later became Hume Brothers Cement Iron Company Limited. Hume Brothers Cement Iron Company Limited operated factories in Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart and abroad, manufacturing centrifugally-spun reinforced concrete pipes by methods patented by Hume Brothers. Eventually Hume Brothers Cement Iron Company Limited became the […]
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HF: This article mentions, “the Chinese tanker, Yung Hao” which the Hong Kong Government had itself recently requisitioned. This article was first posted on 21st November 2015. Related Indhhk articles: Asiatic Petroleum Company, China – contemporary photographs of its Shanghai building Asiatic Petroleum Company, China – family connections Asiatic Petroleum Company, Joe MacDonald – employee, China/HK late 1930s Asiatic Petroleum […]
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Stephen Davies and Hugh Farmer have collaborated in researching the life of George U Sands (1824-1881). In particular his time as the captain of a steamship in China and his later involvement in three Hong Kong companies. Stephen’s contributions are indicated, all others are from HF. Any information about Mr Sands during his time in both China and Hong Kong and […]
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