This photo comes courtesy of the Historical Photographs of China collection, University of Bristol, UK and shows Asiatic Petroleum Company staff, at the A.P.C. depot in Shanghai in the 1930s. Information attached to the image suggests the man marked with an x in ink is “Pop i.e. Edward Edelson Wilkinson).” We have information about a couple of employees of APC […]
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Tymon Mellor: With the completion of Tai Tam (Upper) reservoir in 1888, the city of Victoria now had a secure water supply. The “big reservoir at Taitam” would have sufficient capacity to support the population of 146,000; but now it was time to improve the supply networks[i]. However, with a growing population, unreliable rainfall and the introduction of residential water […]
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HF: The engineerng consultancy Binnie & Partners, though British, has had a close connection to Hong Kong through several large-scale engineering projects. From the late 1990s it has been part of the multi-national consultancy Black and Veatch which has its HK office in Ngau Tau Kok. In 1909 AR Binnie and Son merged with another UK engineering consultancy to become […]
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IDJ: People in Hong Kong expect electricity to always be ‘there’ when they switch on their lights and appliances, but give little thought as to where it comes from or how and where it is produced. Additional information added on 20th June 2019 to IDJ’s original article is in red below. This covers technical data regarding both the A and […]
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James Chan: Dragages Hong Kong, is a very familiar company name on signs at major construction projects around Hong Kong. It’s parent company is Bouygues Construction The company was founded in Vietnam in 1902 as Société Française Industrielle D’Extreme-Orient. It undertook its first project, the dredging and maintenance of a 2,000 kilometre canal system in the Mekong Delta. In 1910 […]
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IDJ has kindly provided this brief history of Hong Kong Electric’s Ap Lei Chau Power Station, together with all of the images shown here which he has collected over the years. IDJ says the book A Mountain of Light, The Story of the Hongkong Electric Company by Austin Coates, says very little about the Ap Lei Chau POwer Station apart […]
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HF: Desalination (or “Desalting” as it appeared to be called at that time) was a source of water in Hong Kong between 1975 and 1981. A large desalination plant was commissioned at Lok On Pai, near Tuen Mun, in 1975, but was decommissioned in 1981 because its operation was more expensive than importing water from Dongjiang in China. A Water Supplies […]
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Tymon Mellor: The first water supply and distribution network for Kowloon commenced operations on the 24th December 1895. The source of the water was from a series of wells, providing a daily capacity of 232,000 gallons and supporting a population of 13,200. By 1898, the demand for water was out-stripping supply; a new water source was required along with additional […]
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“The exact year in which the flight of grantite steps at the southern end of Duddell Street in Central was constructed is not known, but a series of maps of Hong Kong from the period indicate that they came into existence between 1875 and 1889. According to the records of the Hong Kong and China Gas Co., the four gas […]
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HF: This is an article where we can gradually add information about what happened to HK’s industry, manufacturing, mining , transport and other related areas such as shops and the retail trade during World War Two. As bits and pieces come in I’ll update the article and re-post it with the current date. Linked articles have been posted on the […]
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