York Lo: The Queen of Pens – Holia Chow and Rox Industrial In the 1960s, Hong Kong had a pen manufacturer by the name of Rox Industrial (樂士實業), which made a variety of writing instruments including ballpoint pens, fountain pens, markers, sign pens and mechanical pencils. Although Rox focused on the export market, the firm was known locally as it […]
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HF: “Henry B. Endicott joined Butterfield & Swire as Head Shipping Clerk in February 1873, after being headhunted from the US firm of Augustine Heard & Co. An American and a fluent Chinese speaker, he was known to have excellent connections throughout the chartering and shipping community, and John Samuel Swire believed he was the right man for what he […]
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Thanks to IDJ for sending the following newspaper article titled New Year Honours for H.K. Residents. Of particular interest is mention of U Tat-chee, “genial Ginger King and Vice-Chairman of the Hong Kong Manufacturers Union, who becomes an officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil Division).” HF: I have retyped a further extract from the original article and […]
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Ralph Wood has kindly sent the following article. George Underhill Sands was Ralph’s Great-granduncle. Ralph has compiled a substantial amount of information about George Sands’ family as well as the man himself. This can be found on Ralph’s website which is linked below the article. This website has posted a couple of articles about George Underhill Sands which are also […]
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Connie Fong: “People in Hong Kong may come across traditional Chinese steelyards, a type of balance, in wet markets and Chinese medicine pharmacies. Yet only a few of them know the proper way to use one, though it was the optimal tool for measuring weight in the olden days. HF: I have tried to leave a comment at the end […]
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York Lo: K. Y. Shang, the China Can Company and the Development of the Can Industry in Asia In 2010, a 62 year old abandoned mansion and its grounds located at 20 Peak Road on the Peak was sold for HK$750 million. The mansion was the former residence of Kiang-Yuen Shang (項康原, 1895-1968, hereafter referred to as “K.Y. Shang”), the […]
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HF:The engineerng consultancy Binnie & Partners, though British, has had a close connection to Hong Kong through several large-scale engineering projects. From the late 1990s it has been part of the multi-national consultancy Black and Veatch which has its HK office in Ngau Tau Kok. Geoffrey Binnie is closely associated with the constuction of what was, on completion, known as […]
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York Lo: Lee Yat-Ngok, the Local Printing Press Company and the Development of the Hong Kong Printing Industry Passengers on the upper deck of westbound trams passing by Wanchai would recall that the first floor of 48-50 Johnston Road was the home to both the Hong Kong Printers Association (香港印刷業商會, hereafter referred to as “HKPA”) and the Hong Kong Hok Shan […]
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“Lammert the auctioneers have a long history in Hong Kong. Their first association in Hong Kong was with the watchmaking trade. The transition form the watch to the auction hammer occurred as follows. One of the assistants in the watchmaking shop of Charles Weiss in 1852 was M Zobel. He is listed as a watchmaker from 1853 to 1855. In […]
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York Lo: Chi-Chung Yin (C. C. Yin, 尹致中, 1902-1988) – King of Needles Born into a poor family in the farming village of Laiyang (萊陽) in Shandong Province in 1902, C. C. Yin started working at the age of 13 in nearby Japanese occupied Tsingtao (which was occupied by the Japanese between 1914 and 1922) as an office boy at a […]
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