[
    {
        "id": 205620,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1968",
        "page_number": 162,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n157 \n\nThe only study of the question which has any pretence to authority is that by Sayer in his work on the first 20 years of Hong Kong under British rule. In that study he makes use of various contemporary descriptions and accounts to fix the site of the first building to which the name 'Government House' has been given on the location of the Victoria District Court at the top of the present Battery Path. Though I do not contest that the site was so used for a period, it would appear that Sayer's conclusion is at variance with other contemporary material which should have been available to him. The problem stems partly from a failure to distinguish between the offices where the Governor performed his official functions and the residences where he lived. When Sir Henry Pottinger, the first Governor, arrived in 1841, he spent one night in a tent. When he returned to Hong Kong after the successful conclusion of the war against China, he lived in a number of houses, though there is positive evidence only about one of them. Though visual evidence from drawings of Hong Kong suggest that he may have resided in a house in the possession of Major Caine, the Chief Magistrate, there is no documentary evidence of the fact and I am not concerned with it; if he did so reside, he must have done so gratuitously, for the Government Accounts of the period do not record any rent payments which might be attributed to this.\n\nSayer is able to state confidently that \"the first Government House has disappeared without trace” as a preamble to his attempt to re-trace it. The Canton Press of January 1842 reported that “a public office to serve as a temporary residence for the head of the Government\" had just been finished. The same newspaper shortly after this referred to this building as \"Government House,\" but added that it had changed its name to the \"Record Office\" since \"the late Acting Governor has been metamorphosed into a Lieut.-Governor.\" The reference is to A. R. Johnston, who administered Hong Kong during Pottinger's absences from the Colony. Sayer concludes from this that the building referred to by the newspaper must have been the house undeniably built by Johnston at the top of Battery Path. He further supports this by pointing out that, on Collinson's Map of 1844, Johnston's House is marked 'Government House.' Lest, however, this should seem to answer the question beyond further argument, I have a few observations to offer.\n\nAs early as the end of 1841, Johnston was writing letters dated 'Government Hill' and there is no doubt that this was the",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205621,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1968",
        "page_number": 163,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "158 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\narea later, and right up to the present day, reserved exclusively for Government buildings. In one such letter, Johnston informed Pottinger that the 'Record Office' should be completed and ready for occupation in 6 weeks time.3 A few months later, Pottinger was datelining letters 'Government House.' It is a fair assumption that this was the building to which Johnston and the Canton Press referred. It could not, therefore, have been, as Sayer asserted, the house built by Johnston as his own residence; not only because that house was not built until some time later, but also because of the directions which Pottinger gave to Johnston on the selection by the latter of a suitable site for his house. Sayer's assertion would necessitate Pottinger giving instructions on the siting of the house in which he already lived himself. But the contents of the letter provide the answer: Pottinger directed that Johnston's house was not to interfere with the site for the permanent Government House which, he said, would “be in front of the building erected as an office and record office and in which I am now residing.” Since the site for the permanent Government House was then that on which it was eventually erected, it follows that Pottinger was referring to a site lying lower down the hill than that in which he was living. Confirmation of the location is provided by a letter which Davis, second Governor, wrote to Lord Stanley (Secretary of State for the Colonies) in which he told him that his present residence, lately the Land Office, was \"quite commodious enough to enable me to dispense with any other until orders shall be received from Home for its erection.” \n\n5 \n\nThe documentary evidence is confirmed by two maps of the time: both Collinson's Map and that prepared by Gordon, the Land Officer, show a group of buildings just to the south of the present Upper Albert Road. On Collinson's map (the later of the two) they are marked simply 'Government Buildings,' but on Gordon's map of 1843 they are called 'Government House.' At about this time, the Friend of China newspaper described a new road which passed in front of Government House and descending to Queen's Road near Johnston's House. It must therefore be taken to be established that a collection of buildings immediately to the south of the present Government House were the first to bear the name. Though Sayer admits of the existence of these buildings on this site, he fails to relate them to the general question which he sought to answer.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 210158,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1984",
        "page_number": 129,
        "title": "RAS-1984",
        "content_text": "108\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\n“How they live I don't know for I seldom see any boats going in or out; but they all manage to look fat somehow.”\n\nCollinson goes on to describe Little Hong Kong. The village still stands at the head of the Wong Chuk Hang valley immediately west of the southern concourse of the Wong Nei Chung to Aberdeen Tunnel, although its few remaining old village houses are buried inside an area of squatter huts and squatter industries. He continued in the same letter,\n\n“The valley between Shuckpyewan and Hong Kong bay (called Hong Kong in the map) is the proper Hong Kong of the Island and is the largest and best cultivated and prettiest in the island. It is almost a dead flat and according to the people's account has 100 acres of these little fields in it, with the village on an artificial level at the head and a thick wood of evergreens around and behind it and steep rocky hills rising above the wood. Though as dirty as every Chinese place I have been in, it contains a piece of civilisation I did not expect in Hong Kong -- a village schoolmaster; who in his black cotton coat and white stockings is ridiculously like both in manner and appearance (if his tail was cut off) the same character in England. He has only nine scholars, but they are certainly the cleanest 9 of the 200 in the village and he teaches them arithmetic, by giving them so many characters to copy and learn by heart. The school room would have shocked Charley and from the number of drawings on the walls I should say ‘Boys will be boys.’ Even in China.”12\n\nCollinson concludes by commenting on the village itself and the wood clearly the fengshui wood behind it.\n\n“You will have some idea of the way they build villages in this part of China from this one, 70 houses of which are all packed on a space 100 yards by 70. The evergreens behind the town are most luxuriant and reminded me of the oak woods in Wicklow, and the tall bamboo would make a graceful ornament to any garden.’\n\n13\n\nAnother military officer was impressed with the villages and the",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572",
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    },
    {
        "id": 210179,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1984",
        "page_number": 150,
        "title": "RAS-1984",
        "content_text": "129\n\n3. E.J. Eitel (Europe in China, (Hong Kong 1895) p 190) states that this temple was built “75 to 100 years\" before 1841. However, a detailed large-scale survey of the Wanchai area of 1843 shows no building on the site, although the temple building is shown on maps from 1846. The temple site is adjacent to the tiny village of Wanchai, shown on the 1843 map but removed in 1845. The villagers received new lots in compensation for the village, and it seems entirely likely that the present temple was built in 1845-46 on one of these compensation lots (personal comment from Rev. Carl J. Smith). Probably, before 1845, there was a small shrine at the foot of the fung shui rock against which the temple now stands rather than a full-scale temple; this is suggested also by Eitel's referring to the temple as Taiwongkung (Earthgod shrine) rather than by its present title of Hung Shing Temple, suggesting a lowly origin.\n\n4. This temple was demolished late in the nineteenth century, and rebuilt at its present Ventris Road site in 1901. There seems to have been a delay between the demolition and reconstruction (see Temple Directory, unpub., Temple Section, Home Affairs Dept. H.K. Government 1980, p.30) and no datable items from the old temple were transferred to the new temple. The temple is shown on maps from the 1860s, but it is not clear if it is shown on Collinson's survey. It was probably built before 1841.\n\n5. This temple was founded in 1845, but the tablet recording this mentions a previous “altar” (19) on the site. The other Shau Kei Wan temples are all later (To Ti, 1877; Tin Hau, 1872; Tam Kung, 1905), although the Tam Kung Temple was also preceded by a simple shrine on or near the site.\n\nThe governance of the Hong Kong community was in the hands of the Hsin-an magistrate from his yamen at Nam Tau on Deep Bay just outside the present Sino-British boundary. He had assistant magistrates at several places in the district. The officer responsible for the good order of the Hong Kong villages was located at Kwun Fu Shih (17). This sub-magistracy had\n\nPage 150\nPage 151",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572",
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    },
    {
        "id": 210185,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1984",
        "page_number": 156,
        "title": "RAS-1984",
        "content_text": "135\n\nJulian Arnold et al, Commercial Handbook of China, US Department of Commerce, Miscellaneous Series No. 84 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1919) Vol. 1, p. 181.\n\nIbid. It is, however, only fair to record that E.J. Eitel Europe in China: the History of Hong Kong from the Beginning to the Year 1882 (Hong Kong 1898) pp. 130-134 gives a more balanced picture of Hong Kong before 1841.\n\n9 The Chinese characters for most of these places can be found in the Hong Kong Government's Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (Government Printer, n.d. 1960) but variously at pp. 90-98, 103-106 and 114-117. See also “Original Gazetteer and Census, May 15th 1841\" at Appendix II of Geoffrey Robley Sayer, Hong Kong 1841-1862 Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age (Oxford, University Press, 1937), p. 203.\n\n10 The extracts from the Collinson letters reproduced here are taken from transcripts in preparation kindly made available by Mr. Ian Diamond who advises that they should be checked against the originals. For the owners of the letters, and their whereabouts, see file MSS23 at the Public Records Office of Hong Kong.\n\nA reference to Collinson's military mapping of Hong Kong, described by Mr. Diamond in an unpublished memoir as follows:\n\n\"Collinson completed his survey at the end of October, 1845. The work had taken him almost exactly two years. The survey was principally of Hong Kong Island but the resulting map took in also the islands immediately adjacent to Hong Kong, Kowloon Peninsula and the coastline of the mainland as far as Tsuen Wan in the West and Fat Tong Point in the east,\n\nDrawn to a scale of 4\" to one statute mile (1/15840) the finished map was on four joinable sheets covering north-west, north-east, south-west and south-east Hong Kong respectively. The map is meticulously detailed and very finely drawn.\n\nOne of the most interesting features of Collinson's map is that it employs contour lines instead of shading, or hatching, to show land heights and is said to have been the first such map ever to be published. Collinson did not invent the technique. Contour-line mapping was first employed by military engineers in France, but it seems to have been used there largely in the siting and planning of fortifications. By the early 1830s the concept had been taken up by the Royal Engineers who, especially after about 1834, began to give it a more general application, largely in connection with the great surveys of England and Ireland,\n\nHis map was published by the Ordnance Map Office, Southampton in 1846, prior to any contoured map of the United Kingdom, the first not being printed until December, 1847.\n\nCollinson submitted, together with his map, a portfolio of \"Ten Outline Sketches of the Island of Hong Kong\". These were pen and ink drawings of the Island landscape viewed from ten locations and were designed to illustrate its salient topographical features and the nature and location of important buildings and settlements.\"\n\n12 Ibid. A few years earlier, Dr. Edward H. Cree, Surgeon R.N., also recorded a visit to a village school, under date 7 April 1841. \"Went into the village school where we saw a lot of moon-faced urchins were acquiring the rudiments of the celestial learning and put one in mind of some of the village schools at home.\" (ed) Michael Levin, The Cree Journals, The Voyages of Edward H. Cree. Surgeon R.N., as related in his private Journals 1837-1856 (Exeter, England, Webb and Bower, 1981)",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214053,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1997",
        "page_number": 121,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "88\n\nThe roads (some sections being only bridle paths) that followed included one from Shau Kei Wan to Sai Wan in 1845 and subsequently onto Stanley, another from Victoria to Aberdeen in 1846, one from Aberdeen to Stanley in 1848 and, at about the same time, another to Pok Fu Lam. These early roads and tracks were shown on the first contoured topographic survey (scale 4 inches to a mile, say 1:16,000, with 100ft contours) of Hong Kong Island which was carried out by Lieutenant Collinson of the Royal Engineers. The map was first published in 1845 and the quality was such that it remained in use, with periodic revisions, for some 50 years.\n\nAs might have been expected, the early roads were poorly constructed and often damaged in the summer rains with the wooden bridges being frequently washed away. Gradually the lesson was learnt and roads were surfaced and bridges constructed with masonry. Even so, as late as 1890, an editorial reported \"The recent rains once again worked up Queen's Road into a quagmire. Some months ago the road was re-metalled on a principle which it was believed would be sufficiently strong to withstand the wear and tear of jinricksha wheels, but it is now as bad as ever......... Until jinrickshas were introduced Queen's Road was always fairly clean, even in the wettest weather.\"\n\n**\n\nWhile the built-up areas were slowly expanding the road system was developing and, by 1908, Hong Kong could boast a network of 153 kilometres of roadways on the Island with cut hillside slopes typically being 75° and filling contained by masonry retaining walls. At this time a writer commented \"vehicular traffic is confined chiefly to handcarts, rickshaws and chairs suspended from poles borne on the shoulders of coolies, there being but a few pair-pony gharries and a Victoria or two used by the Chinese\". Around the turn of the century when Lugard and Harlech Roads were constructed encircling the Peak, local inhabitants were displeased - they thought it \"likened the effect of putting a halter around the neck of the Hill of Great Peace\". Fortunately no adverse consequences became apparent! The diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897 was marked by a proposal to build a road around the Island; the scheme was opposed by the military and, after lengthy delays, the section below Mount Davis along the 45m contour (Victoria Road) was commenced.\n\nThe advent of the motor car stimulated upgrading the existing",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214060,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1997",
        "page_number": 128,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "95\n\nwith impounded water being conveyed through a 2.2km-long 2.5m-diameter tunnel, mainly in granite, and by a 5km-long conduit winding along the northern shore of the Island beneath Bowen Road to the first two slow sand filter beds above the city, and thence into the service reservoir located at a lower level. The distribution system involved laying, between 1890 and 1892, some 30 kilometres of 75-350mm-diameter cast-iron mains together with the installation of a system of fire hydrants. Major fung shui problems were encountered during the tunnelling works, rumour being that children were to be selected for burial alive to ensure success; fortunately no ritual sacrifice was needed!\n\nOn an uncontoured 1895 version of Collinson's plan (1845), there is an interesting feature clearly marked “overhead tram\" extending 2.3 kilometres between Quarry Bay and Quarry Gap. It seems likely that it would have been used to transport materials and, perhaps, workmen associated with the early Tai Tam reservoir works. As part of the Tai Tam scheme a further small high-level reservoir at Wong Nei Chong was completed in 1899. Around this time the Braemar reservoir (now Choi Sai Woo Park) and further smaller reservoirs near Quarry Bay were built, primarily to meet the needs of the large commercial Tai Koo sugar refinery and dockyard complex.\n\nWith the population already rising to about half a million, three further concrete dams within the Tai Tam valley, the largest Tai Tam Tuk being 50m high, and associated reservoirs were completed between 1904 and 1917. The upper (42m high) and reconstructed lower (20m high) concrete dams, the latter being previously a privately-owned dam built in 1890 for a paper works, impounding the Aberdeen reservoirs were later finished in 1931 and 1932 respectively, thus completing the last economical water storage development on the Island.\n\nAfter the turn of the century engineers were already looking to the New Territories to increase the supply of water for Kowloon, which had hitherto been dependent on two wells located to the north of Yau Mai Tei. As a result, the 35m-high concrete dam for the Kowloon reservoir was completed in 1910 and three further reservoirs in the vicinity were completed during the period 1925-1931 by which time the population was already approaching a million. A commercial reservoir was also built early this century to the south of Lung Wo Tsuen to provide water for Rennie's cotton factory at Junk Bay.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215518,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 295,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "245\n\nVictoria is increasing rapidly in size, and the Happy Valley will soon be within the municipal boundaries. The time must come when the existing Cemeteries will be closed, and the dead taken elsewhere for burial. The Protestant Cemetery is now nearly full, and every little corner is being made use of...29\n\nA soldier also wrote home about the cemetery:\n\n[Happy Valley] is crammed with the graves of Europeans who have succumbed to the diseases of the unhealthiest country in the world. The graves of the soldiers are numbered. And when the last one was buried on his grave was 5373, showing that that number had died since the city was garrisoned by the British...30\n\nDespite what had been written in the mid 19th century, new burials were and still are carried out in the cemetery till this day - almost one and a half century later.\n\nEarly Burial Grounds in Stanley and West Point\n\nThe cemetery in Stanley,31 renamed Stanley Military Cemetery after the Second World War, was another burial ground erected in the early days of British rule. The area was the site of early military barracks. Although burials can be traced back to 1843, no mention of the cemetery has been found in any of the examined records, nor is it depicted on Lieutenant T.B. Collinson's map and sketch prepared in 1846. One source suggests that the cemetery was opened on 21st July 1843.33 It may be possible that servicemen and families were buried in that area, but the cemetery was not designated until later.34 The use of this cemetery was apparently discontinued after 1870, but it was re-opened during the Japanese occupation period for the burial of civilian internees. After the war, many of the servicemen who died in the battle were re-buried in the cemetery. No new burials have taken place there since the war.\n\nSimilarly, West Point, another barrack area3 in the early days, was also the site of a burial ground in the early 1840s. It is recorded that the Pro-Prefect Father Navarro forwarded on 26th February 1843 a petition for another burial site at West Point for the troops, which was granted on 3rd March the same year.36 However, no further information",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215541,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 318,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "268\n\n38 Fortune, Robert (1935). THREE YEARS' WANDERINGS IN THE NORTHERN PROVINCES OF CHINA. Shanghai: The University Press, p. 22 (footnote),\n\n39 Inscriptions found at the entrance of the cemetery. However, in Barbara-Sue White's TURBANS AND TRADERS: HONG KONG'S INDIAN COMMUNITIES (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 17, the year stated is 1854.\n\n40 Information provided by the Rev. Carl T. Smith.\n\n41 \"The cemetery can be found in an 1863 map, see Hal Empson, p. 132.\n\n42 Smith: A SENSE OF HISTORY, p. 401\n\n43 Ibid, p. 402.\n\n44 A HAND-BOOK TO HONGKONG BEING A POPULAR GUIDE TO THE VARIOUS PLACES OF INTEREST IN THE COLONY, FOR THE USE OF TOURISTS (1893). Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh, p. 94.\n\n45 杜瑞樂 (Joel Thoraval)著(張寧譯)(2002):《葬禮與祈禱的安排:香港回教信託基金總會歷史概貌》(1850-1985),載陳慎慶編:《諸神嘉年華:香港宗教研究》(Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, p. 392.\n\n46 Empson, p. 132. The cemetery is also shown in another 1866 map in the same book, see p. 49.\n\n47 Information provided by the Rev. Carl T. Smith. Details regarding the founding of this cemetery are not known as yet. In a 1863 map, at the site of the subsequent Muslim cemetery, an area marked as 'Indian soldier' can be found, which might be an early burial ground for Indian soldiers, but details regarding its founding is not known, see Empson, p. 133.\n\n48 The graves in this cemetery were removed to Cape Collinson Catholic Cemetery, around late 1980s and early 1990s, according to Father Louis Ha, long after the Bethanie had been purchased by the University of Hong Kong in the early 1960s,\n\n49 \"For the breakdowns of population figures, see Blue Books or HKGG of the corresponding years.\n\n50 The figure included that of 'British Kowloon,' i.e., the area south of old boundary",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215559,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 336,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "286\n\nof gravity of the tower low and to afford the minimum resistance to wind and wave. This lighthouse became superfluous and stopped operating in 1896 after Waglan lighthouse came into operation in 1893.\n\nSeveral considerations\n\nIn building Hong Kong's first lighthouse many factors were considered, such as need, finance, location, the apparatus to be installed and the staff.\n\nIn the beginning of the 1870s the need to erect lighthouses was envisaged by the Western mercantile community. In fact, in 1872, the combined tonnage, outwards and inwards, amounted to about six million. The need to provide navigational aids for the heavy sea traffic was thus obvious. The revenue raised by levying vessels entering Victoria Harbour would be able to support the running costs of lighthouses.12\n\nSurveys were conducted to look for suitable sites on which to erect lighthouses to light the approaches to Hong Kong harbour. The three best sites were considered to be,\n\n• Waglan, an island off the south-eastern extremity of Hong Kong,\n\n• The North East head of Lema Island, and\n\n• Gap Rock, 26 miles southward of Hong Kong.\n\nHowever, all these three were then under Chinese jurisdiction. Negotiations with the Chinese Government did not reach satisfactory conclusions for both parties. This was because the Chinese Government would not cede or lease any island for such purposes and the British Government did not wish to spend money on projects not under its direct control.\n\nThe second-best sites, all within the jurisdiction of Hong Kong, were considered to be Cape D'Aguilar, Green Island and Cape Collinson, as reported by the Harbour Master, H.G. Thomsett in March 1873. Lighthouses in these places would cover the eastern entrance and the western entrance to Hong Kong harbour. Eventually, this is",
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    {
        "id": 215561,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 338,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "288\n\nCape Collinson Lighthouse\n\nThe light at Cape Collinson was established on 1st March 1876, the year following the other two lighthouses. The reason for being later was that its apparatus was mistakenly sent to the Cape of Good Hope. The illuminating apparatus was fixed Dioptric of the Sixth Order. The focal plane of the light was 200 feet above mean sea level, and in clear weather it could be seen for a distance of eight miles. This lighthouse showed a white light on the bearings from N. 22 W. by East to S. 22 E. Ships heading for Victoria Harbour from the North and the Eastward were thus able to avoid Bokhara and Tathong Rocks, also the rocks outlying Sy Wan Bay by keeping the white light in sight. It also showed a red light from S. 22 E. by West to N. 22 W.20\n\nWhen all three lighthouses were first in operation, vessels entering Hong Kong harbour were adequately provided with navigational aids. Gradually, as time passed, lighthouses were required to display their own distinguishing characteristics and to repeat these at shorter intervals for more frequent observation as the speeds of steamships increased. In the beginning of the 20th century an 18-knot ship could travel over a quarter of a mile every minute. The older optics that revolved at the speed of four minutes per revolution were replaced by new ones revolving at 15 or 20 seconds. This was made possible by floating the lantern in a mercury bath causing it to revolve with minimum friction. This new technique was installed in lighthouses built in the 1890s.\n\nNew lighthouses\n\nIn 1892 and 1893, after much discussion and negotiation between Hong Kong and China, lighthouses were built on the two best sites initially chosen to light the approaches to Hong Kong: namely on Gap Rock and Waglan.\n\nAs early as 1867, before the building of the first lighthouse in Hong Kong, Commander Reed, a naval surveyor, was instructed to investigate suitable locations for lighthouses to cover the port approaches. He proposed Waglan Island and Gap Rock, small islands to the south of Hong Kong Island en route to Singapore. However, as neither of the proposed locations was within Hong Kong waters, these recommendations were not pursued.21",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215565,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 342,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "292\n\nI am sorry I cannot tell you much about the life of the keepers. If you have not been able to question Charlie Thirlwell (and people like him) then it is likely their story has gone forever. Sad, but so many stories are already lost.\n\nThe good news however is that, over a period spanning approaching half a century, the author has been able to question, off and on, some of Hong Kong's lighthouse keepers, together with seafarers and Government Marine Department staff. Accounts given by them and the life keepers led are detailed in this paper. Much of the material is based on oral history gleaned in discussions with Government Marine Department staff, both serving and retired, as well as other persons. Both authors have made several visits to Hong Kong's lighthouses and have appeared on television programmes about them (Video; 2001).\n\nEmphasis in this paper has been placed on Waglan Lighthouse because, situated approaching five kilometres from and to the south of Cape D'Aguilar, and nearly 13 kilometres from Lei Yue Mun, Waglan is the most isolated lighthouse in the Territory (Banister; 1932, 50) (Lee, HC). Other lighthouses include those at Cape D'Aguilar and Cape Collinson, both on Hong Kong Island. Others at Green Island and Kap Sing lighthouse are both within harbour limits.\n\nClimatic conditions\n\nThe author recalls visiting Waglan Lighthouse with the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch) by boat on a lovely afternoon on Saturday 9th June 1990. Indeed on some days out there in the South China Sea it can be idyllic - a not-to-be-forgotten experience. Terrence Courtney, an Australian who served as Superintendent of Lights in the late 1950s and '60s, used to stay overnight on the island because he found it ‘enchanting.' He slept in an isolated, small, brick building which is still standing.\n\nBut the helipad, constructed in mid-1982, destroyed much of the romance although helicopters do of course provide a vital service - if a keeper fell seriously ill for example. Also, they were useful for getting keepers on and off Waglan in bad weather. Previously, it had sometimes meant their being hauled up or lowered in a basket which served the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215567,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 344,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "294\n\nwere smashed by the mass of water being blown against them.\n\nThe Royal Observatory reported:\n\nGap Rock is lying very near the track of the worst typhoons that have been felt in the Colony, in an exposed position, and the conformation of the sea bottom, as well as the shape of the rocks causes the sea to be much worse than in other places (Bruce; 1990, 3).\n\nIt was reported in 1984, that the Royal Observatory and the Guangdong Meteorological Bureau had signed an agreement to set up a joint venture automatic weather station on Huang Mao Zhou, about two kilometres from Gap Rock so, presumably, the weather is as interesting today as it was in the 1890s (Bruce; 1990; 3).\n\nIt is obvious that lighthouses have to withstand immense force during bad typhoons. Consequently, they are designed circular on plan so as to offer the least resistance to both wind and sea. Lighthouses are expensive to construct. Nevertheless, like the cast-iron tower at Waglan, they can be reasonably pleasing in appearance.\n\nBefore December 1952, and from 1964 onwards, weather observations on Waglan were taken by Marine Department lighthouse keepers and transmitted by radio (Hong Kong Observatory; 1999). 33 The Observatory staff started taking weather observations on Waglan in 1952 and withdrew from the Island to the meteorological station at Cape Collinson Lighthouse in 1964.\n\nAs Waglan was no longer manned after 1989, the observatory constructed an automated weather station on the Island. The old weather recording station and a small store where equipment was housed were still there when the author visited in 1999, although the latter is no longer used. But the typhoon mast, where signals used to be hoisted, has been taken down.\n\nWater supply\n\nWaglan has no wells or springs. Keepers depended on rainfall for their water supply. Catchment areas consisted of roofs of a clutch",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215896,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 195,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "1864\n\nThe terra \"Kowloon Battery\" appears right to the north of the expression \"Lei Yue Mun\" in the Sun On Gazetteer, referred to as the \"Sun On District Gazetteer Map.\"\n\nEmpson, 1992, p.113 (Plate 1-25)\n\n1876\n\nThe name Devil's Peak appears in a sea defences map of 1876.\n\n1888\n\n1895\n\n27 May 1898\n\nThe name Devil's Peak appears in Stanford's Map of Hong Kong and Kowloon.\n\nThe Chinese translation \"Kwei Shan,\" literally \"devil hill,\" appears alongside Devil's Peak in the revised Collinson Map.\n\nThe Committee on Armament on Certain Stations at Home and Abroad decided on 27 May 1898 that two 9.2-inch Bl. Mark X and two 6-inch QF guns were to be mounted on Devil's Peak at sites to be called Pottinger Battery and Gough Battery, respectively, to strengthen Eastern defences.\n\nEmpson, 1992, p.134 (Plate 2-3)\n\n(Plate 2-4)\n\nEmpson, 1992, p.135\n\nEmpson, 1992, pp.136-137\n\nRollo, 1992, p.70\n\nThe Kowloon Battery is universally associated with the fort outside the south gate of the Kowloon Walled City.\n\nSee p. 187 Rollo, 1992 for a drawing of a 9.2-inch BL Mark X on a Mark V mounting\n\nJune 1898\n\nJanuary 1899\n\nThe leasing of the New Territories for 100 years by the British with effect from 1 July 1898, Devil's Peak became part of British Hong Kong.\n\nConference on Armaments regarded Hong Kong as a dockyard, port, and naval base of great importance.\n\nThe 6-inch guns proposed by the 1898 Committee took shape in the form of BL guns on Centre Pivot Mark II mountings instead of QF guns,\n\nThree batteries proposed for Devil's Peak.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.72\n\n128\n\nPage 195\n\nPage 196",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]