HF: Included in Tymon Mellor’s article, Manganese mining on Lamma Island, was this Temporary Mining Licence No.18 and mention of two zinc oxide factories. Kwang Wah in Shauk(e)iwan and Kin Sheng in Kennedy Town. I would be very grateful if anyone could provide more information about, or images of, either of these companies which appear from the mining licence below […]
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IDJ has sent this interesting addition to our information about the collection and disposal of night soil and refuse/waste in Hong Kong. Thanks to SCT for proof reading the retyped version below. One of the most important problems which will confront the Colony in the event of an emergency (including typhoon disturbance), is the question of the disposal of night-soil […]
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IDJ: Present day residents of Hong Kong can barely envisage that a major electricity generating power station once dominated the waterfront in the bustling North Point district of Hong Kong island. Today all people see from the harbour is a wall of high-rise residential buildings rising up to the hilltops. However, there are clues are in surviving street names in […]
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Dan Waters’ article, Hong Kong’s Hongs with Long Histories and British Connections, includes the following information about The Hongkong and China Gas Company. The article appeared in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong in 1990. Dan has written several articles directly for our Group. HF: The queries are mine. I have also added the images. “William Glen, who […]
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HF: Thanks to IDJ for sending the following newspaper article in. I am presuming the system never got started and it would be of interest to learn why not. The article was a little difficult to read so I have retyped it. Thanks to SCT for proofreading the retyped version. The offer to establish the chain of wireless stations was […]
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HF: Bill Burns runs a fascinating and detailed website about the history of submarine communication cables (linked at the end of this article). He has kindly sent four maps related to the worldwide network of such cables in 1901 and 1991. Two of the maps are centred on Hong Kong. The first is a 1901 World Map of “Grandes Communications […]
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Thanks to IDJ for sending in this article thereby enlarging our knowledge about the collection of nightsoil in Hong Kong and hopefully making us appreciate the modern collection and treatment of sewage. Thanks also to SCT for proofreading the retyped article. New nightsoil removal methods in Hongkong Combating the Cholera Menace in the Colony Drastic changes in the present method […]
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Peter Crush has kindly sent the following article about the Hongkong Telephone Company which was first published in the Far Eastern Review of September 1933. Many thanks to SCT for proofreading the retyped article shown below. And thanks to Peter for improving the clarity of the first two images below. Please note the images do not appear in the same […]
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Tymon Mellor: Farming in Hong Kong has always been a challenging vocation; small field sizes, labour intensive, often rugged terrain and unpredictable weather. In good times two crops of rice could be grown a year but with erratic rainfall and the expansion of the reservoir catchwaters system, the agricultural community were under pressure. They wanted infrastructure investment to support farming […]
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Stephen Davies: An interesting question to which I don’t know the answer, is what the provenance is of the gasometer that still stands (and I believe is in use for stand-by storage) back from the Tin Wan Praya waterfront just outside the Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter West entrance (on the north shore). I’m fairly sure it’s been there as long as I […]
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