York Lo: From Ships in Cheung Sha Wan to Shoes in Sham Shui Po – the Chan family, Wing On Shing Shipyard and Po Shing Shoe Company Left: Po Shing Shoe in the Posco building at 165 Un Chau Street (Source: Flickr). Right: The original Po Shing building in 231-247 Un Chau Street in the 1950s. (Source: Facebook) The Group has […]
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HF: Vol. 34 of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch published in 1994 contains a lengthy article about German speakers in Hong Kong and of the companies they were involved in. It was written by Carl Smith. I am familiar with only a small number of these companies and even fewer of those persons working for […]
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York Lo: J.H. Vaughan – An American Shipbuilder in Hong Kong San Pablo from the movie The Sand Pebbles – JH Vaughan’s highest profile creation (Source: Sand Pebbles movie website) Americans have been involved in the Hong Kong shipbuilding industry since the early days of the colony when two Bostonians – Charles Emery and George Frazar set up their shipyard in […]
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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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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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Vaudine England has kindly sent a link to what she describes as a typically 1900-era directory of the European empires in the east. There is much in the directory of interest to us which has been linked in articles below. The author was D Warren Smith.(1) I thought I would divide these summaries into several parts. Fifth up – Trade […]
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IDJ has sent the following article. HF: I have retyped the original article to improve clarity and aid searches Thanks to SCT for proofreading the retyped script. This is the galleon which will be taking part in the Festival of the Arts Pageant at the Government Stadium on October 30. It was designed and built by Taikoo Docks from old […]
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Dodwell & Company (天祥洋行) was one of the leading British merchant firms, active in China and Japan during the 19th and 20th century. It was a direct rival to Jardine, Matheson & Co. “It was established in 1858 when W R Adamson and Company (silk dealers) set up in London, with its head office in Shanghai and branches in Hong Kong, […]
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IDJ has sent these photos extracted from an in-house Taikoo Dockyard publication of 1954. This was the period midway between the dockyard’s expansion after the Second World War during which extensive destruction had been caused both by the Japanese during their occupation in 1942–45 and allied bombing prior to the liberation of Hong Kong. And the Swire Group’s decision in the […]
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IDJ has sent extracts from an in-house Taikoo Dockyard book of the 1950s which covers a wide range of company facilities, workshops etc. The section of the book shown in this article covers General Engineering and reveals that the yard’s manufacturing skills extended beyond the obvious shipbuilding into a wide range of heavy engineering…and more surprising delights. General Engineering Many […]
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