Walter Dunn & Company – nautical instruments
James Chan: This advert from 1951 is courtesy of Grace’s Guides: British Industrial History. However, the company doesn’t appear to have operated in the UK. So I wonder if it was a Hong Kong based company. If so did it manufacture here?
I can find no mention of Walter Dunn & Co. in the HK Public Records Office newspaper search. And Grace’s Guides does not say where this advert came from.
If anyone finds information about the company please send it in.
HF: On 12th April 2024 IDJ sent in this advert for the company extracted from the book The China Coaster’s Tide Book and Nautical Pocket Manual, published in 1914.
Many thanks to ”knoxploration” for posting the following comment:-
This article was first posted on 25th July 2015.
See:
Likely the same Walter Dunn & Co. that was selling nautical publications from Man Yee Building in the late 1960s. They appear to have been a retailer, rather than a manufacturer:
http://ebook.lib.hku.hk/HKG/B32056746V1.pdf
http://ebook.lib.hku.hk/HKG/B35835874.pdf
From the first link (1966):
“Messrs. Walter Dunn and Company of Man Yee Building, Hong Kong, maintain ample stocks of Admiralty charts, nautical publications and navigational instruments.”
And from the second link (1967):
“Useful publications and where to obtain them
3. Regulations for Preventing Collision at Sea Price $2
On sale at George Falconer & Co. Ltd.,
903 Prince’s Building, Hong Kong, or
Walter Dunn & Co., Man Yee Building,
Hong Kong”
The original Man Yee Building, incidentally, was located at 60-68 Des Voeux Rd Central. It was said to be the colony’s first to feature elevators, and its last to feature manually-operated escalators. It was torn down in 1999:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/50066665@N03/4727839418/