BLACKHEAD
(2) Continuation.
47
GERMAN PIONEER MERCHANT
1
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Reference has already been made in this series to Mr. B. Schwarzkopf, a former merchant of the Colony, whose name was anglicised to Blackhead and is commemorated by Blackhead's Point Kowloon. His life story is worthy of a fuller reference but I give extracts here of write-up published thirty years ago, at the time his firm attained its golden jubilee.
The S.C.M. Post of March 1, 1905, had the following interesting things to say about the firm of F. Blackhead Co. of St. George's Building which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary that day.
The event is so unique in the commercial history of Hongkong that it calls for more than a passing remark. From a very small beginning this house has risen to the position it holds to-day, and it goes without saying that the commodious premises at St. George's Building, the entry into which marks the commencement of the second era, looking on the glorious century will have many visitors on the unanimous errand of congratulation.
Fifty years is a long cry: there are few, if any foreign residents in Hongkong at the present day who can adequately realize what it means. In short these five decades have seen a complete evolution in means of communication by sea. We have been transported from the palmy days of the brigantine to the heyday of the turbine and from the crude pull away to that marvel of the electric age, the motor. Were old Mr. B. Schwarzkopf, the founder of the house of Blackhead to come back to this earth he would, to be struck dumb with amazement at the advance and strides science has evolved since the simple and rudimentary age when he first set foot on Chinese soil.
Sailing up and down these rugged and inhospitable shores in the early Forties, it occurred to Mr. Schwarzkopf that there was no opportunity to be missed of at once making his pile and doing a service to fellow sea-farers. He realized the difficulties of obtaining ship supplies in a country which, at that time, was bitterly opposed to foreign intrusion, and he accordingly set his mind upon meeting these obstacles. The plan he mapped out for himself was one which required considerable hardihood, and force of will and character. These qualifications he had already acquired during a rough and adventurous career on the ocean wave.
He was indeed well equipped as a sea-dog, but his line was cast in another direction. Everyone knows how weak the average sailor is in matters of business but Mr. Schwarzkopf was not of the average type.
Born in Stettin, he had acquired under careful tuition in the old home, the trading capacities of the Teuton. Whampoa was then a place of great importance, it was "the seat of a large portion of the foreign sailing