134
415
24.
Land sales in 1844 offered fairly secure tenure, and the establishment of the Registry Office by ordinance, also in 1844, where titles to property were filed, helped to place the matter on a sounder basis.
Much could be written of this aspect of the early years including the land jobbing and fictitious dealings by speculators if space permitted. Let us however return to the question of permanence of occupation of Hongkong by Britain.
Yet it could not have been for long that anyone imagined Britain would not retain the island, for as early as March, 1842, Sir Henry Pottinger issued his notification appointing the first Land Committee, to investigate claims, to mark off boundaries, to fix the direction and breadth of the main road (Queen's Road) and other public thoroughfares, to order the removal of encroachments, and to assign new locations for the dwellings of Europeans and Chinese.
With the subsequent regularising of titles I have already dealt briefly, above: the implication remains that several early property holders must have had vague rights, if any, and suffered confiscation through probably no fault of their own.
We
I give to-day a sketch plan copied from one in the Land Office, showing how the development of the city was proceeding five years after the founding of the Colony. This plan is dated July 1846, and referred to a land sale about to take place: its chief interest is the fact that the date is about the same as the picture of Queen's Road looking west from Murray Battery, drawn by Mr. J. Bruce and reproduced in an article published on 11-1-34. We are able definitely to identify the two-storeyed building seen in the left middle distance, where the National City Bank now stands, for it is marked "Ice House" in this plan of 1846, and shows that the original ice house, which gave its name to the street, was situated west of the lane, and the building still standing at the corner of Battery Path, against the hillside, was used later, it being a mere transfer across the road. (In the earlier plans, dated 1841-2, the old Ice House site is shown occupied by coal sheds).
The rather elaborate pier shown in Bruce's picture is also explained by this plan, for it is marked Dent's Pier, and was evidently used by John Dent and Company, one of the first-comers to the Colony, a big firm which failed in 1867. The position is approximately where the new premises of the Bank of East Asia are now going up, and Dent's old office must have been just opposite the pier, or very near. Part of the building is shown in Bruce's drawing, which should again be consulted in connexion with this plan.
It might be noted that the Harbour Master's Hill was the name given then to what was later called Pedder's Hill, and the old Harbour Office is shown with a building at the rear, approximately where the Dairy Farm offices are now. The sketch reproduced here is not drawn exactly to scale, but shows the relative positions of various old premises and highways.