Tymon Mellor: Construction of the Kowloon Canton Railway included the excavation of the Beacon Hill tunnel through the Kowloon hills. At the time, the tunnel at 7,212ft or 2,198m was the longest tunnel in China and the fifth longest tunnel outside Europe. The southern and northern portals were remote from existing villages and sickness among the workers was common. To […]
» Read more
Stephen Davies: An interesting question to which I don’t know the answer, is what the provenance is of the gasometer that still stands (and I believe is in use for stand-by storage) back from the Tin Wan Praya waterfront just outside the Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter West entrance (on the north shore). I’m fairly sure it’s been there as long as I […]
» Read more
York Lo: H P Wu’s full name was Hsin Ping Wu (吳新炳). Born in 1894 and native of Kiangyin in Kiangsu province, he went to Tsinghua and studied in the US as a Boxer Indemnity Scholar, receiving his BS in electrical engineering from Cornell in 1921 and training at General Electric in the US. From 1927 to 1937, he was […]
» Read more
York LO: Blood Protection Co (保血有限公司) and Fish brand mosquito incense Left: old package of Blood Protection Co’s Fish mosquito destroyer featuring the portrait of its founder H.L. Sum (right) and his brother/son. Right: Blood Protection Co’s ad from the early 1960s – the tagline reads what’s the point of having money when you cannot protect your blood. The warm […]
» Read more
York Lo: Yankee Needle: American Merchants and the development of the Swatow lace industry in China and the garment industry in HK Left: Swatow women working on needlework at Lida Ashmore’s school (Lida Ashmore’s The South China Mission of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, p.94) Right: Lida Ashmore (sitting, second from the right) with her colleagues laying the foundation […]
» Read more
York Lo: Leader of the Battery Pack: Hing Wah and Five Rams Batteries Left: Five Rams batteries ad in 1955 (Source: IDJ); Right: Hing Wah’s HK plant in the 1950s (Source: HK Memory) Founded in Canton and expanded to Hong Kong in 1938, Hing Wah Battery Factory (興華電池廠) was one of the oldest and largest players in the batteries industry in […]
» Read more
York Lo: The Kings of Industries – the family behind Wearbest Garment in HK and Wha Mei Tobacco in old Shanghai As profiled in many other articles in this group, Shanghainese industrialists played a crucial role in the post-WWII industrialization in HK in fields ranging from textile, plastic, enamelware, construction and many others. In the field of garments, Sieh-Ting King […]
» Read more
York Lo: The Needle, the Bible and “Our People”: Chiuchow Christians and the Swatow Lace Industry in Hong Kong Swatow lace merchants on the board of HK Chiuchow Christian Association in 1936 – back row: Yadsun Cheng (Chin Chian & Sons; first from left), Ng Chung-wing (吳寵榮,Kowloon Lace; third from right); Henry Lin (HK & Shanghai Lace; second from […]
» Read more
HF: Patrick Manson was instrumental in the founding of The Dairy Farm Company in Hong Kong. I am going to post an article specifically about the man and Dairy Farm shortly. Sir Patrick Manson was born in 1844 and studied medicine at Aberdeen University, passing M.B. and C.M. in 1865. In 1866 he became medical officer of Formosa for the […]
» Read more
York Lo: Shanghainese Builders in HK (Part Six) – Ahong and Chinney Ahong and Chinney are two Shanghainese builders in Hong Kong who trace their roots back to pre-War Shanghai and are controlled by two families which share the same last name – Wong. Ahong followed the interesting path of moving first from Shanghai to British Malaya in the 1930s […]
» Read more