HF: The Tien Chu (H.K.) Company Ltd. was founded by Wu Yunchu (1891-1953). Wu was a chemist and industrialist and known as the “Father of Monosodium Glutamate”. He was involved in the chemical and condiment industries in China especially I believe in Shanghai in the 1930s. York Lo says Wu Yunchu actually went by the name of “P. N. Woo” (probably due […]
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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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Robin Selby has been researching Bullivant’s, the UK supplier of the cable used in the construction of the Taikoo Sugar’s aerial ropeway (1891-1932)… “I’m not aware of a site in Stroud as mentioned in your article, Bullivant & Co, Millwall London, supplier of Taikoo Sugar Refinery’s aerial ropeway cables, [linked below]. In 1912 Bullivant’s set up a satellite factory in Leighton […]
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Robin Selby has been in contact about his great-uncle Thomas Selby (1866-1937). Robin says, Thomas had a full life and was at one time mate of the Cutty Sark, captain of another ship, went on to work for the The Indo-China Steam Navigation Company Ltd (ICSNC) which had been established in 1873 as a subsidiary of Hong Kong based Jardine, Matheson […]
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HF: The SS Alaska was a 4,012 ton, 8 speed, side-wheel steamship launched on 27th November 27th 1867 for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. She saw service between New York and Aspinwall, now known as Colón, Panama, and was later used on the San Francisco to Panama City and San Francisco to Hong Kong routes until 1879. During the night of Tuesday 22 September […]
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Edward Schneider (great-grandson of Carl Ingenohl): El Oriente was mostly a trade name, although it did appear in various names of companies of the group associated with Carl Ingenohl’s business group. The parent company was a Swiss partnership of which Ingenohl was the General Partner (and principal partner) and that partnership owned the Hong Kong company, the Manila company (until […]
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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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The SwireNews article, Yen-er-chi and the Compradore, HB Endicott and Cheng Kuan-Ying concludes: Source: SwireNews Related Indhhk articles: Henry Bridges Endicott and The China Navigation Co. – early Swire days in China – Part One
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HF: Carl Ingenohl operated cigar manufacturing companies in both the Philippines and Hong Kong under the trade name La Perla del Oriente. In Hong Kong Ingenohl ran the Orient Tobacco Manufactury Company which had a factory in Yau Ma Tei. The newspaper article below mentions his ownership of the Hongkong Tobacco Manufactury which I believe was actually the Yau Ma […]
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Elizabeth Ride has sent this BAAG report which provides further information about the Gardner brothers after their departure from Hong Kong: Extract from a BAAG Counter-Espionage Precis #1, 21 January 1944. “….. A very full and informative report has been received from Macao that Chan was closely associated with two Filìppino boys, Bobbie and Frank Gardner, who were arrested by […]
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