by Duncan G. Crewe and Richard A. Whittington This article was published by The Hong Kong Study Circle in its Journal 371/2 in October 2014. For more about this group see the information and link below. On 27 March 1936 the DH-86 aircraft RMA Dorado departed from Kai Tak with the first air mails by Imperial Airway’s direct service from […]
» Read more
HF: This Michael Rogge film from 1962 is of interest as it begins with the Peak Tram and views of HK harbour showing how much has been reclaimed in the last half century. 0.13-0.50 Peak Tram and views from the Peak 0.51-1.20 Views of HK Harbour 1.21-2.07 Views of and from the Peak 2.08- 2.38 Repulse Bay […]
» Read more
HF: Chavalier R Pescio was a man with vision. Especially when it came to trams and tunnels in Hong Kong. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 11 August 1909 contains this article which notes “rents in the Colony of Hongkong are abnormally so, more than in any part of the world in proportion to the accomodation offered”. Even then […]
» Read more
IDJ: After the war the school was re-established catering for up to two-hundred pupils at a time. In 1952, the school was absorbed into the Wheelock Marden group of companies. One result of Typhoon Wanda in 1962 was that the school’s hangars housing its training facilities were destroyed, along with a number of its aircraft. Flying instruction then ceased to […]
» Read more
IDJ: Probably ‘the first’ formal engineering training school in Hong Kong was the Far East Flying Training School Ltd established as a private venture in November 1933 at Kai Tak Airport. Pupils from Hong Kong, China, Macao and many countries in Asia attended class-room courses on aeroplane structures, engine technology, as well as the use of hand-tools and workshop machine […]
» Read more
IDJ has sent these extracts from a 1908 book which describe the company and show photographs of its operations. The company was founded in 1862, The Hong Kong and China Gas Company Limited (now known as Towngas) was Hong Kong’s first public utility and its original generating plant, the first in Asia, stood on the waterfront at West Point near Whitty Street. […]
» Read more
Vaudine England has kindly sent a link to what she describes as a typically 1900-era directory of the European empires in the east. The author was D Warren Smith. We have already posted the following extracts from this account, Part One – Industries in Hong Kong, Part Two – Shipyards in Hong Kong, and Part Three – The Peak District […]
» Read more
“If you missed the last Star Ferry at 1:30am, [back in the 1960s] you could hire a walla-walla (jip6 laa1 jip6 laa1 嘩啦嘩啦), a kind of small motorised water taxi that plied the waters between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. “The name came from the sound of the boats when they were cruising,” says retired journalist Li Ping-sum,who grew up in Yau Ma Tei. […]
» Read more
Earlier on the website, we profiled the major taxicab companies in HK from the 1920s to the 1960s. The late 1960s saw the dissolution of the large taxicab companies and the emergence of driver-owned taxis driven by regulatory changes and the proliferation of transportation vehicles such as minibuses and unlicensed cabs (also known as “white plate cars”) to meet the […]
» Read more
IDJ has sent the PF Leeds 1984 extract below concerning Trams in Kowloon. HF Presumably “the company” means Hong Kong Tramways. (Note: In 1902 Hong Kong Tramway Electric Company Limited was founded. In the same year the company changed its name to Electric Traction Company of Hong Kong Limited. And in 1910 the name changed again to The Hong Kong […]
» Read more