$37
GILMAN & CO.
One of the oldest firms doing business in Hongkong is Gilman and Company Ltd., which was established a year after the Colony was founded. There is considerable romance in the origin of the concern, for it is a story which takes us back to the old days of tea clippers, and the great trade done between Europe and China in the fragrant produce, with Foochow as one of the principal tea ports. Hongkong later became the headquarters of several firms shipping tea home, and Gilman's were among the chief of these. The concern was founded by Mr. Richard James Gilman, who had been a tea taster in the firm of Dent and Company, one of the oldest pioneering concerns in China, subsequently to go into liquidation. Mr. Gilman entered into partnership with a Mr. Bowman, in 1842, the firm taking premises in the city under the style of Gilman, Bowman and Co. A few years later, however, Mr. Bowman retired, and the name was changed to Gilman and Co. This is the firm's name given in an old directory, in which we find Mr. Gilman as sole partner in 1847, with two resident assistants, Messrs. Augustus R. Hudson and A.A. de Hocha; premises being at Queen's Road, Central.
The period was one of prosperity all round, with a flourishing trade in various commodities, the tea traffic being then unchallenged by the later Java, Indian and Ceylon product. The firm so flourished that in 1855, Mr. Gilman returned to the homeland with a considerable fortune. He was succeeded out here by new partners, and the business continued to prosper for about a quarter of a century, when a series of commercial depressions set in which overthrew many of the big firms engaged in trade in the East. Gilman's, like a number of other well-established concerns, managed to pull through, although they suffered heavily, and special arrangements had to be made to tide over the bad period. The company is to-day well set in the forefront of local trade, and this bears testimony to the business acumen not only of the commercial pioneers who guided the firm's destinies in the earlier years, but also their successors up to the present time. The firm was incorporated in 1917 as a limited liability company, and in recent years one of their chief enterprises has been the development of a motor car trade.
I have been able to gain access to several old documents in their possession which give an insight into the history of commercial enterprise during Hongkong's early period. Perhaps the following paragraphs, taken from a memorandum prepared by a former partner, Mr. W.S. Young, dated at Hongkong on April 10, 1884, might be quoted, as showing both the trend of the company's early business as well as the vicissitudes it successfully faced. Mr. Young wrote his memorandum for the information of incoming partners, and thus showed his business foresight and care for the interests of the firm. I quote him as follows:
"Of the early history of the business there is little to say. Mr. Gilman went home in 1855 with a fortune, which was subsequently very largely increased, and did not return to China.
It may be taken for granted that the business continued fairly prosperous for a good many years as several partners in succession (Messrs. A.R. Hudson and W.H. Vacher amongst others) made money and retired.
"In 1871-2 Gilman & Co., who had been several years established in Yokohama, as well as Hankow, Shanghai, Foochow and Hongkong, occupied a leading position in the East and were doing a very large business. It consisted to a great extent of importations of Manchester goods, and their London agents, Messrs. Ashton & Co., must have benefited enormously by the commissions arising therefrom, as well as from consignments of tea and silk.