HF: The first mention of a bakery in a Hong Kong newspaper I can find is that of Dorabjee Nowrojee’s in Queen’s road next to P&O Steam Ship Company’s office. The advert, published in 1864, is dated 1860 so it’s rather odd that it suggests a newly opened business. James Chan: The Wanchi Steam Bakery Company and The Colonial Bread […]
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HSBC Main Building (香港滙豐總行大廈) is a headquarters building of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, which is today a wholly owned subsidiary of London-based HSBC Holdings. It is located on the southern side of Statue Square near the location of the old City Hall, Hong Kong. The previous HSBC building was built in 1935 and pulled down to make way for the current building. The current building is the […]
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York Lo: Shanghainese Builders in HK (Part Seven) – John Lok, Yao Kee, Paul Lee, TK Shen, Wide Project and Wai Kee In the first six articles in this series, all the Shanghainese builders profiled were firms that were established in pre-war Shanghai and moved to HK before or after 1949. This article will profile seven Shanghainese builders who were […]
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York Lo: Bernard Van Zuiden (萬瑞庭, 1899-1979) – Dutch Trader and Philanthropist in Hong Kong Bernard van Zuiden (right) welcoming his visiting elder sister at a cocktail reception in HK in 1959 (WKYP, 1959-12-10) Life and Career of Bernard Van Zuiden Born in Enschede in eastern Netherlands, Van Zuiden studied textile and commerce in his hometown in the 1910s. He […]
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The history of explosive storage in Hong Kong is an interesting one. The earliest location appears to have been Magazine Island, originally named One Tree Island, which lies just to the West of Aberdeen Harbour. From 1887 to 1908 it was leased for an annual rent of $100, by the Nobel Explosives Company, who built a magazine, a road and […]
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York Lo: Susan Yuen (原劉素珊)– the Mother of the FHKI, HKMA, HKTDC and HKPC Susan Yuen (center) with Sir Sik-nin Chau (second from left) and Sir Sze-yuen Chung (third from right) at a flag raising ceremony in one of their many overseas trips for HK industries. Ever since their inceptions in the early 1960s, the Federation of HK Industries (FHKI), […]
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Arthur Rylands Lowe (22 June 1873 – 31 May 1924) was a British accountant and the first full-time professional accountant in Hong Kong. Lowe was born on 22 June 1873 in Manchester. He was educated at the Hulme Grammar School and later joined Parkinson, Mather & Co., chartered accountants of Manchester and London. He moved to Hong Kong to join Butterfield […]
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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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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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In our Queries and Answers 5 Eric Spain had an enquiry about salt production in Mui Wo. He remembers seeing some RAF aerial photographs which showed salt pans there. [presumably immediately before, during or shortly after WW2?]. Frank Watson and Namussi added information to Q+A 5 which is linked below. HF: Further information can be found in a post I made on gwulo.com […]
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