Lapraik, this new dockyard on the south of the island had been established. It prospered exceedingly, and a new dock was opened ten years later.
Let us turn for a moment to the first Kowloon dock-yard. It is perhaps not generally known that this was opened under Admiralty auspices. The Naval dockyard at Hongkong had been established for some years, but it was felt that a place at Kowloon was desirable, and a new dock for the use of H.M. ships having been approved by the Admiralty in January, 1863, a site was purchased at Hung-hom, in November, 1864, for the nominal sum of $50, by the Union Dock Company, which had been formed to work the existing and projected dockyards, and was the predecessor of the big establishment located at Hunghom to-day. (see 29-8-33, giving the history of the H.K. and Whampoa Dock Co., Ltd.).
The first launch at the Union Dock took place in 1868; but a fuller reference thereto must be reserved for a further article.
The Union Dock Co. was registered under the new Companies Ordinance in July, 1865, with a capital of $500,000; and in October, 1866, the H.K. and Whampoa Dock Co. was registered with a capital of $750,000.
This latter company had actually been formed under that name in July, 1863, taking over the Whampoa dock properties of the ill-fated John Couper (father of J.C. Couper), which had been destroyed in 1857, by the Chinese, but since rebuilt. The Company in 1886 bought over the interests and dock properties of Mr. Douglas Lapraik and Mr. (afterwards Sir) Thomas Sutherland (of the P. & O. Company); and had already (in 1865) concluded negotiations to purchase the Lamont yards at Aberdeen, including the new dock under construction. In March, 1870, an amalgamation was effected with the Union Dock Co., and the capital was increased to $1,000,000.
In the Seventies the shipbuilding activities reached a new high level. We find the Cosmopolitan Docks completed in October, 1875, signalised shortly afterwards by the construction there of a steamer of 200 tons, the "Fookien."
Meanwhile Messrs. Inglis & Co. had come into being at Spring Gardens, and they built a gunboat for the Chinese Customs service in 1876; a similar vessel being constructed at West Point by Captain G.U. Sands, who had acquired the patent slip of an earlier enterprise. Both these gunboats were launched in January, 1877.
En passant, it might be recorded that in 1881 there was a proposal to establish a dockyard in Belcher's Bay (beyond West Point), with exclusively Chinese capital, for the purpose of docking the steamers of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company and other native firms; but the scheme never materialised.
It was the previous year (1880) which had, in fact, seen the establishment in the Colony of the H.K. and Whampoa Docks as the paramount shipbuilding enterprise, the last of the opposition concerns having been bought out. The West Point business of Captain Sands was the only one to retain a measure of independence in the face of keen competition up to the close of the Seventies.