202
NOTES AND QUERIES
gilded roundels and a scholar's cap. He is clean shaven and holds a short-handled round fan in his left hand. His wife is dressed in faded robes and is bareheaded. Both have strong faces, probably adequate if not good likenesses. The images are about 12 inches high.
Malacca too, has strong Fukienese connections, and again I would expect this couple to have been of Fukienese origin.
Hong Kong.
October, 1979
KEITH STEVENS
MARBLE HALL*
Marble Hall was a very fine private residence in Conduit Road, Hong Kong, built by Sir Catchik Paul Chater. It has since disappeared, but the photographs which this note supplements reveal how imposing and sumptuously furnished a home it once was.
The owner
Sir Paul Chater, born on 8 September 1846 of Armenian parents from Calcutta, arrived in Hong Kong in 1864. His career began in a bank, but he soon went into business as an exchange and bullion broker and later ventured into various successful commercial enterprises. He established the Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company, having been authorised by two ordinances in 1884 to construct piers and wharves in Victoria harbour, and was a co-founder (with Jardine, Matheson & Co) of the Hong Kong Land Investment and Agency Co Ltd (now better known simply as "Hong Kong Land"); later he formed the Hong Kong Mining Company to exploit deposits of iron ore in the New Territories and operated coal mines in Tonking. He was a public-spirited gentleman who initiated the Praya reclamation scheme in 1887 and campaigned vigorously for acquisition by Britain of the territory where he later discovered iron. Chater served as an unofficial member of the Legislative Council for nearly twenty years, elected to that position by his fellow Justices of the Peace, and was one of the first unofficials to be appointed to the Executive Council.
*Plates 24-32 illustrate this Note,
202
NOTES AND QUERIES
gilded roundels and a scholar's cap. He is clean shaven and holds a shorthandled round fan in his left hand. His wife is dressed in faded robes and is bareheaded. Both have strong faces, probably adequate if not good likenesses. The images are about 12 inches high.
Malacca too, has strong Fukienese connections, and again I would expect this couple to have been of Fukienese origin.
Hong Kong.
October, 1979
KEITH STEVENS
MARBLE HALL*
Marble Hall was a very fine private residence in Conduit Road, Hong Kong, built by Sir Catchik Paul Chater. It has since dis- appeared, but the photographs which this note supplements reveal how imposing and sumptuously furnished a home it once was.
The owner
Sir Paul Chater, born on 8 September 1846 of Armenian parents from Calcutta, arrived in Hong Kong in 1864. His career began in a bank, but he soon went into business as an exchange and bullion broker and later ventured into various successful commercial enter- prises. He established the Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company, having been authorised by two ordinances in 1884 to construct piers and wharves in Victoria harbour, and was a co-founder (with Jardine, Matheson & Co) of the Hong Kong Land Investment and Agency Co Ltd (now better known simply as "Hong Kong Land"); later he formed the Hong Kong Mining Company to exploit deposits of iron ore in the New Territories and operated coal mines in Tonking. He was a public-spirited gentleman who initiated the praya reclamation scheme in 1887 and campaigned vigorously for acquisition by Britain of the territory where he later discovered iron. Chater served as an unofficial member of the Legislative Council for nearly twenty years, elected to that position by his fellow Justices of the Peace, and was one of the first unofficials to be appointed to the Executive Council.
*Plates 24-32 illustrate this Note,
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