York Lo: From Dodwell Motors and Gilman Motors to Metro-Dodwell and MD Motors As a result of a series of acquisitions by the Inchcape group in the late 1960s, Metro Cars, the distributor of Austin automobiles covered earlier merged with Dodwell Motors and Gilman Motors to form Metro-Dodwell, the largest auto dealer in Hong Kong in the early 1970s. Below […]
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York Lo: Five Stars (五星牌) and Three Rings (三元牌) – Aluminum Pioneers Wah Chong (華錩) and Ting Tai (鼎大) Production of aluminum (or aluminium based on the British spelling) sheets and products in Hong Kong began in 1949 with two firms – Wah Chong, the maker of the “Five Stars” brand of aluminum ware which opened its branch factory in […]
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York Lo: Advertising & Publicity Bureau (湯臣廣告公司) APB’s booth at the British Industries Fair in 1939 in Birmingham, UK. APB was the first overseas ad agency to have exhibited at the show, which was the most popular attraction in the UK from the 1920s to the 1950s (Malaya Tribune, 1939-3-28) As mentioned earlier in the article about the HK neon […]
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York Lo: City of Neonlights: HK Neon Light Industry and some of its key players Hong Kong owed its reputation as “the Pearl of the Orient” to its neon light industry which lit up the city from signs for small shops on busy streets to giant record-breaking signs atop skyscrapers on the Victoria harbor front from the 1930s to the […]
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The following article has been extracted from the Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography. The article about Ho A-mei was written by Elizabeth Sinn and first published in the Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography, edited by May Holdsworth and Christopher Munn. The publisher, HK University Press, has kindly granted permission for it to be posted here, but retains copyright over this material from […]
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David Bellis, Mike T, Hugh Farmer and Elizabeth Ride: In 19 Queries & Answers: Amakusa Marine Products Industrial Company, 1942, HF wrote, “By December 1942 around 18,000 Hong Kong Chinese fishermen were reported to be receiving instructions from the Amakusa Marine Products Industrial Company.” (Snow) I said I could find nothing out about this company which if the above is […]
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York Lo: The Ho brothers and Jan Sin Mee and Standard/Shui Hing From the 1960s to 1980s, the Ho brothers – William Ho Sau-pang (何壽彭), Shau-Hong Ho (何壽康,1923-1996) and Stanley Ho Sau-nan (何壽南) were major players in the HK garment industry as William and Shau-hong were the founders of the Jan Sin Mee Group, one of the largest garment manufacturers […]
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HF: Yates and Thom, (formerly W and J Yates), 9 Canal Ironworks, Blackburn, UK, were makers of engines for mills, collieries and waterworks. And the original engine for the Peak Tram which was opened for public service on 28 May 1888. Construction had begun іn September 1885. Initially a static steam engine was used to power the haulage cable “built […]
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York Lo: Wall of Fame: profiles of players in the HK wallpaper industry – Koo Sun Kee, Coda, Oriental, Sunray and Waly Earlier on the website, several articles were written about paint manufacturers. Another big business which emerged out of the need to cover the walls in the post-War housing boom in HK is wallpaper, which began to gain popularity […]
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York Lo: Brothers: Knitwear Pioneer Yap Chuin-siu and Financier Simon Yip In the 1960s to 1980s, Yap Chuin-siu and his brother Simon Yip were prominent figures in the HK business scene as the earlier was the founder of Rose Knitting, a leading listed knitwear manufacturer and the latter a high-profile financier with large investments in the Dominican Republic who was […]
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