James Chan: In 1863 Thomas Sutherland became the first chairman of the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock. He was 29. The following has been extracted from the Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography. Both the author Robert Nield and HK University Press have given permission for extracts to be used in this article. Robert Nield: “Thomas Sutherland was the founder of one […]
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Stephen Davies: In the early 1850s in Sai Wan there was a boiler shop run by James Logan and William Swan, and a foundry run by William Dunphy at 58 Praya. Nearby at 63 Praya Harper & Co sold shipbuilding equipment (basically the bits and pieces of patent slips). In 1855 either someone bought out Logan, Swan and Dunphy, or maybe […]
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HF: Please note the first pages of this report are missing. Elizabeth Ride has sent BAAG Report KWIZ #78, date unknown, and noted earlier: After KWIZ #4, the Naval section is not included in the AWM papers, and does not appear again until KWIZ #66, and then in a slightly different format. HF: I am afraid because of time constraints […]
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Nikki Veriga: This photo is of my grandparents – James (Newcastle on Tyne) and Elizabeth Thirlwell (nee Wilkinson) and their children. Grandad was a Master Mariner and captained the tug “Tai Koo” on her final voyage. [The Tai Koo struck a mine and sank in the Red Sea with the loss of 26 of the 63 people on board on 12th September […]
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Stephen Davies: With the help of Ian Killick at the UK Hydrographic Office Archive, I think I have learned that the Fan Lau Lighthouse would seem to have been first installed in 1936. Ian did a quick search of a spread of the Admiralty List of Lights, Fog Signals and Visual Time Signals and the 1953 edition gave Fan Lau light as having […]
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D.L. Wu (伍德鄰) (1905-1995) devoted his entire life to the shipping industry. After attending the Shanghai Baptist College and the University of the Philippines, he started his shipping career in Shanghai in 1928 where he worked for the China Merchants Steam Navigation Co. Ltd. Still in Shanghai, he joined the San Peh Steam Navigation Co. in 1937 and he was […]
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Elizabeth Ride has sent BAAG Report KWIZ #77, dated 15th December 1944, and noted earlier: After KWIZ #4, the Naval section is not included in the AWM papers, and does not appear again until KWIZ #66, and then in a slightly different format. The image shown on the Home Page and below is of the Japanese oil transport ship Sanko […]
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HF: Stephen Davies’ article, Ulderup and Schlüter Shipyard, Sham Shui Po c1900-1914, mentions that the shipyard became the local agents for the Swedish Bolinder marine diesels (Bolinder Rohölmotoren – strictly semi-diesels) – two strokes that for the first two decades of the 20th century were probably the world’s most common small marine diesels although most of their early output seems to have […]
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New information added on 29th November 2020 about Percy Richard Cuming. The Indo-China Steam Navigation Company, Limited (ICSNC), was established in 1873 as a subsidiary of Hong Kong based Jardine, Matheson & Co., one of the largest trading companies in the Far East at that time. HF: I thought it might be useful to have an article about employees of the ICSNC., similar to the one we have […]
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Stephen Davies has sent this photo of various shipyards post-WW2 along the Cheung Sha Wan coastline. Details are unclear but he believes one of these is Wing On Shing Shipyard, article linked below. The only yard that can be readily identified is Wang Tak Engineering & Shipbuilding Company just left of centre. Adapted from the company website: “The story of our company began […]
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