York Lo: Po Chai Lemonin (普濟檸檬精) Left: “Lemon King” Chan Shiu-chuen; Right: Po Chai Lemonin ad Founded in Canton in the early 1920s by Chan Shiu-chuen (陳少泉, 1903-1968) and moved to HK in the late 1940s, Po Chai Drug Co (普濟藥行) was best known for its Lemonin – a popular pain killer medicine across China and Southeast Asia from […]
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Tymon Mellor: Galena ore, the main source of lead was first discovered at Lin Ma Hang in around 1914. As described in Part 1, a number of attempts were made to commercially exploit the lead ore, but they all failed. That was until Mr Morrison Brown Yung took an interest in the site and introduced modern mining methods to extract […]
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York Lo: Once Upon A Time in Mongkok: Chow Ngai Hing Knitting Factory One of Chow Ngai Hing’s brands – the Horse trademark. In Mongkok, there are four streets which have names there are associated with garments – Yim Po Fong Street (染布房街, dyeing mill street), Hak Po Street (黒布街, black cloth street), Pak Po Street (白布街,white cloth street) and Sai […]
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HF: Our article, 1924 Report on the Commerial Development of the Port of Hong Kong, begins by mentioning the visit of Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice to Hong Kong in 1920. Fitzmaurice, as a partner in a firm of Consulting Engineers, had been invited to offer advice on general improvements to Hong Kong’s harbour and also specific areas within that subject. The […]
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York Lo: Fung Yuen-hon (馮元侃) and Wai Yuen Cheong (惠元昌) Left: Fung Yuen-hon in front of the Wai Yuen Cheong sign (HKET); Right: Shaolin Temple brand medicine label – address listed as 42A Bonham Strand West and stating that pregnant ladies should avoid consuming. In 2014, the 96 years old Fung Yuen-hon (馮元侃) decided to shut down Wai Yuen Cheong, the […]
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York Lo: Wan Tat-ming (溫達明) and Ling Nam Weaving (嶺南布廠) Left: Wan Tat-ming(Kung Sheung Evening News 1956-12-24); Right: Ad for Ling Nam Weaving in 1948 (Tung Wah Monthly, 1948) Like Shum Choy-wah who was covered earlier in another article, Wan Tat-ming (1911-1988) was a major figure in the weaving mill business and community leader in the 1940s through 1960s who […]
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York Lo: Eastern Arts Lantern (東藝宮燈) Eastern Arts booth at the 1971 HK Products Expo. Source: HK Memory In the 1950s and 60s, HK industrialists leveraged the flexibility of plastic as a material and developed a wide variety of products ranging from toys, flowers, Christmas trees, buckets, plates to shoes and sandals and exported them all over the world. One […]
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“Kenneth Alfred Wolfe Barry (c1879-1936) Second son of John Wolfe Barry Partner in business with his father, along with A.G. Lyster, Past President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and G. E. W Crutwell, M. Inst. C.E. J. S. 1936 Obituary: Kenneth Alfred Wolfe Barry , O.B.E., was the senior partner in the firm of Sir John Wolfe Barry and Partners. […]
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York Lo: Samuel Gee Yen (嚴欣淇) and East Sun Textile(怡生紗廠) Left: Bio and picture of Samuel Gee Yen in 1948. Source: 實業界名人錄(1948); Right: picture of Samuel Yen before boarding CAT plane to Taiwan to visit his relatives in 1959 (WKYP, 1959-8-24) Founded in April 1949 by Samuel Gee Yen (aka Shing-Gee Yen 嚴申耆,1906-1984), East Sun Textile was one of the […]
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York Lo: The Van Family from Cambodia and the Bonsun Group of companies (萬象) Bonsun Industrial Building in Tsuen Wan, next to Wong’s Factory Building Earlier on the website, I touched on the sale of the Wong’s Factory Building at 368-370 Sha Tsui Road in Tsuen Wan, which was developed by the Wong family of Sweetmart Garment (see article). Right […]
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