Directory_and_Chronicle_1934 — Page 959

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HONGKONG

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Koad frontage are crowned with a large dome. Opposite the Des Voeux Road entrance to the Bank stands a bronze statue of the late Sir Thomas Jackson, Bart., who from 1876 to 1902 was chief manager of the institution. The statue was unveiled by Governor Sir Matthew Nathan on February 24th, 1906. At the opposite end of the Bank garden, facing the Praya, a memorial has been erected to the 42 members of the Bank's staff who made the supreme sacrifice in the Great War. It takes the form of a female figure of "Fame," in bronze, 8 feet high, holding in her hand a wreath, while in front is a smaller statue of a soldier with kit and rifle. The Memorial was unveiled by H.E. the Governor (Sir R. E. Stubbs) on May 24th, 1923. An extensive reclamation along the city water frontage from West Point to Murray Road, initiated by Sir C. P. Chater, C.M.G., was completed in 1903, the total area reclaimed from the sea being approximately 65 acres. Of this area 33.73 acres constitute building land, the remainder being occupied by roads and open spaces. The total cost, including reconstruction of Government piers, was $3,862,325. The various sections as they were ready were rapidly built upon. and some of the finest buildings in the Colony have been erected on the reclaimed land. On the eastern section a handsome building for the Hongkong Club was finished in 1897, and was occupied in July of that year. The Pier at the foot of Pedder Street was opened on the 29th December, 1900, and named Blake Pier in honour of Governor Sir Henry Blake. A hundred yards to the East is Queen's Pier, a handsome structure now used on all official occasions. Further west is the Harbour Master's Office, a commodious building completed in 1906.

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The chief religious buildings are:-St. John's Cathedral (Anglican), which was erected in the year 1842, occupies a commanding site above the Parade Ground, and is a Gothic church of considerable size but with few pretensions to architecture. It has a square tower, with pinnacles, over the western porch, and possesses a peal of bells. A new chancel was built in 1869-70, the founda tion stone of which was laid by the late Duke of Edinburgh on the 16th November, 1869. A handsome stained glass window in the east end, over the altar, to the memory of the late Mr. Douglas Lapraik, another in the north transept erected in 1892 to the memory of the late Dr. F. Stewart, formerly Colonial Secretary, one in the south transept to the memory of those. who perished in the wreck of the P. & O. str. Bokhara, another to the memory of the Hospital Sisters who died in 1898 while in execution of their duty during an outbreak of plague, and the stained clerestory windows of the chancel, presented by Lady Jackson in 1900, and one to the memory of Bishop Hoare, who lost his life in the typhoon of 1906, are the chief adornments of the interior. The choir stalls, pulpit and Bishop's throne are fine samples of Chinese carving in teakwood. It also possesses a fine three-manual organ. A Church Hall adjacent to the Cathedral was opened on January 31st., 1921, and on the previous day a Memorial, in the form of a granite cross, to those who fell in the Great War was unveiled in the compound by the H.E. The Governor. St. Stephen's Church, for Chinese, was built, in 1892.

It is a neat building in red brick with white facings, with a tower and spire about 80 feet high, standing on the Pokfolum Road side of the Church Mission com- pound. Union Church, a rather pleasing edifice in the Italian style of archi- tecture, with a spire, and containing accommodation for about 500 persons, formerly stood in Staunton street, but was rebuilt in 1890, on the plan of the old building, on a new site above the Kennedy Road.. This church possesses an organ, and the three rose windows are filled with stained glass. A second Union Church was opened in Kowloon in 1931. A Wesleyan chapel stands at the junction of Queen's Road and Kennedy_Road; this was enlarged in 1904. A Wesleyan Sailors Home, stands on Praya East next to Sailors' and Soldiers' Home, it is a fine, well planned building and was opened on 30th January, 1929, by Sir Cecil Clementi. The Roman Catholic Cathedral situated in Glenealy, near the Botanic Gardens, is a large structure in the 'Gothic style; it was opened for worship in 1888. A campanile tower with a small spire surmounting it was completed in 1904 to receive a new peal of five bells. St. Joseph's Church, in Garden Road, is a neat edifice erected in 1876 on the site

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