[ { "id": 206273, "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-1971", "page_number": 90, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "84 \n\nCARL T. SMITH \n\ntherefore in the hands of shopkeepers, compradors and pedlars of whom there are many, though their transactions when considered as a whole are but trifling.' \n\n12 \n\nIn his remarks on native trade, Gutzlaff states that an attempt had been made by a Cantonese capitalist to establish himself in Hong Kong. He is referring to Chinam, alias Chan Akuen, who with three other partners operated under the firm name of Tun Wo *. The Colonial Treasurer, R. M. Martin, also refers to him in his report: \"One man of reputed wealth named Chinam, who had been engaged in the opium trade, came to Hong Kong, built a good house, and freighted a ship. He soon returned to Canton, and died there of a fever and cold contracted in Hong Kong. It was understood, however, that had he lived he would have been prohibited from returning to Hong Kong\",13 \n\nIn June, 1843, Chinam bought Marine Lot 54 from Richard Oswald paying $8,000. At the time it had on it a Singapore frame house14 with brick enlargements. On the lot Chinam proceeded to build a large Hong in the Chinese style, but before the building was completed, he died in July, 1844. With his death the firm closed down its operations in Hong Kong and most of the Hong stood unoccupied for a number of years. One of Chinam's partners, Chan Chun-poo, was appointed his administrator, but due to irregularities in his handling of the estate he was imprisoned in 1854, and remained in prison for two years. He petitioned the Government for his release on the grounds of his advanced age. The property of Chinam's firm was sold in 1854 to Ow Yeung Sun, a trader from the San Wui District in Kwang Tung. \n\nAnother Canton firm that established itself in Hong Kong in the early days was Akow and Company. It was not in the same class as Chinam's Tun Wo firm, but its position was above that of the shopkeepers and tradesmen concentrated in the Bazaar areas. The company was granted Inland Lot 22 located at the corner of Queen's Road and Pottinger Street in the European section. The firm consisted of five partners, of whom Cheung Kam Cheong was resident in Hong Kong. He began to speculate in real estate and bought several lots at Government land auctions. His land investments were not successful and \n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207149, "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-1974", "page_number": 220, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "214\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\ngood size bed rooms, with dressing and bath room to each; two servant's rooms; a front and back verandah, closed with venetians, each 100 feet long and 12 feet wide, flat roof convenient for exercise and affording a fine view of the harbour and its entrances. Commodious outbuildings for servants, store room and offices; a large compound, garden, etc., whole surrounded by a good fence. Situated on the ridge at West Point and now in occupation of Jamieson, How and Co.\n\nThere was not a ready sale. A business depression prevailed and the location was too remote from the European section of Victoria.\n\nBelow the bungalow Jamieson, How and Co. built a large godown on Marine Lot 57 in 1842. Ten years later this property was sold at auction. The premises on the Marine Lot were described as consisting of \"a costly and recently improved residence, granite godown, pier, outhouses, shrubbery\". The West Point Bungalow was described as beautifully situated immediately opposite on the hill. Both properties were bought by Yorick Jones Murrow.\n\nIn 1854 the West Point Bungalow was used as a military barracks. This left it the worse for wear. Because of its dilapidated condition the Rhenish Missionary Society was able to purchase the property at a reasonable price in 1857. They needed a centre in Hong Kong as they had been forced from their stations on the mainland by the outbreak of hostilities between Britain and China. In 1859 the Government repossessed the property as a site for a new Civil Hospital.\n\nThe area north of Queen's Road extending to Ko Shing Street was the original beach. The land between Queen Street on the east and Wilmer Street on the west can be divided into six main sections. The first (Marine Lot 68) is a rectangular lot three houses wide and bounded on the east by Queen Street. The second section (Marine Lots 68A, 69, 69A, and 70) is intersected by Tsung Sau Lanes East and West. The third section (Marine Lot 58) is the former Ko Shing Theatre property with Wo Fung and Kom Yu Streets. The fourth section (Marine Lot 57) is bounded on the west by Sutherland Street and contains In Ku Lane. The fifth section (Marine Lots 71, 71A, 72, 72A) lies east of Sutherland Street and is intersected by Li Sing Street. The sixth piece (Marine Lot 200) is a triangular lot with its narrow point on Queen's Road and its west boundary Wilmer Street.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207150, "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-1974", "page_number": 221, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n215 \n\nThe area between Queen's Road and the present Des Voeux Road, originally the Praya, extending from Wilmer Street west to Eastern Street was bought in 1858 by a Chinese consortium consisting of Chun Afie, Pang Awah, Tso Atak and Leong Hang*. The tract purchased consisted of Marine Lots 90, 91 and 92. They were apportioned among the several purchasers. At first the property was devoted principally to Chinese ship building yards, but as population and business spread westward, the yards became crowded out. The two lanes Tsz Mi and Sai Woo were developed in the 1860's. On the old Praya there was a concentration of rice dealers and a scattering of salt fish stores, though Ham Yu** Lane was located on the lots immediately to the west, between Eastern and Centre Streets.\n\n \nLike all the land in urban Hong Kong, the area we visit has passed through successive changes in land use and ownership. The land use changes are marked by three main periods: first (1842 to around 1855) European godowns and residences; second (1851 to about 1880) ship yards, engineering works and coal godowns; and lastly (1870 to the present) Chinese shops, godowns and residences.\n\n \nThe owners of the land were originally mostly non-Chinese. But by 1876, all except a range of godowns and sheds owned by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company was in Chinese hands, being divided between two of the largest land owners in the Colony: the Li family of the Wo Hang and Lai Hing firms***, and Kwok Acheong who was Compradore of the P. & O. Co., owner of his own steamships, and founder of the Fat Hing firm.\n\n \nAt its first settlement the area was almost rural, for it was situated at the western end of original Victoria. Because it provided a convenient spot for pier and landing facilities, two European firms selected West Point for their Hong Kong establishments, just as Jardine, Matheson and Company settled at East Point, even though both locations were somewhat distant from the main centres of foreign business in Spring Gardens**** and Central District. In\n\n \n*The Pang and Chan are the same that bought the land at the east end of Wanchai, in the vicinity of the Yuk Hui Temple—see \"Notes on the Nineteenth Century Development of Wanchai”, earlier in this Section.\n\n \n** Cantonese for salt fish.\n\n \n*** See Smith: \"Emergence of a Chinese Elite”, JHKBRAS 11, pp. 90-92. See \"Notes on the Nineteenth Century Development of Wanchai”,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207565, "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-1975", "page_number": 333, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "324\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nsite to which it was removed in 1929. The first, and larger, of these was the Kwun Yam Temple already noted, with its associated public buildings. The bell and the earliest presentation boards (*) are dated 1873-74. The main entrance of the temple was rebuilt in 1889-90, and the undated Kung Sor (公所) or public office built onto one side of the central structure may also be attributed to this time. A separate clinic or public dispensary building was added in 1910, according to a memorial tablet of that year, which bears the names of very many subscribers.\n\nThe second of the Hung Hom temples is almost as old as the first. According to a plaque recently placed inside the building by the Chinese Temples Committee, this Pak Tai temple dates from the 2nd year of Kuang Hsü (1876-77) when it was built at the eastern end of Ching Chau Street, Hung Hom, but as stated above, was later removed for development. The oldest dated items in the present building are a bell dated 1893 presented by a Wo Hing Tong (*) and a set of incense burners dated 1901-02 presented by 'the whole community of Hung Hom Dockyard Village (紅磡澳通圍).\n\nThis temple development, and the basis it provided for local community effort, is reminiscent of the similar developments in Yau Ma Tei reported in this Journal some time ago.† The Kaifong (街坊) or neighbourhood organisation centering as in Yau Ma Tei on a local temple is credited with these community services; references to a Kaifong school and a volunteer fire brigade are also available. This self-help and enterprise of the local community, was, however, not a new phenomenon but one created to a pattern long familiar in Chinese urban communities. Hong Kong, 1976.\n\nCARL T. SMITH\nJAMES HAYES\n\nHONG KONG: TYPHOON PREPARATIONS IN 1903\n\nReaders will recall Mr. A. J. S. Lack's article 'Yaumatei Typhoon Shelter, Hong Kong, 1903-1915' in the 1973 Journal. The following description is of interest in this connection. It is taken from the Memoirs of Robert Dollar, pp. 55-56 published privately in America in 1927, and describes a visit to Hong Kong in 1903. Ed.\n\nCommonly styled in Cantonese,\n+ JHKBRAS, 6, 1966: pp. 129-131.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208282, "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-1978", "page_number": 6, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "185\n\nthey were knocking on every door in the village to force villagers to act as their porters. Mr. Chung had little choice but to obey. For the next week, he and quite a few of his fellow villagers were taken away from the village. He remembered having to march up Fei Ngo Shan, down to Ma Yau Tong, and then to Lei Yu Mun, until he successfully escaped.66\n\nIt was probably on December 11 that Mr. Chau T'in Shang in Sai Kung Market saw the Japanese cavalry pass. The Japanese did not enter the market. There was no disturbance or fighting. The police had been withdrawn before the Japanese arrived, and people just stayed indoors.67\n\nQuite a few villagers from Sai Kung and nearby villages were in the city when the War broke out. Mr. Wan Ts'eung of Tai Po Tsai was living in Kowloon City at the time. He must have learnt of the beginning of the War when he saw Kai Tak Airport bombed. But he recalled that one morning, he was in the street, and was shocked by machine-gun fire behind him. He hid behind some stone pillars, and then saw Fifth Columnists, known as the \"victory fellows\" (shing lei yau) who proclaimed that they were members of the Asia Prosperity Institution (Hing A Kei Kwan). Mr. Cheung Wing of Wo Mei was in Shaukiwan when he heard of the outbreak of war. He immediately went with several people back to the village, and feared all the way that they might be spotted and shot at by the Japanese. He arrived in the village before the Japanese came down from Keng Hing Shek. Mr. Tse Koon K'au of Tan Ka Wan spent the night of December 7 in the Nathan Hotel in Kowloon. This hotel was frequented by New Territories villagers when they went into the city. The next morning, he heard the aeroplanes and the bombs, and went out to ask what the matter was. When he saw that people in Shamshuipo were wounded, he realized that it was not a practice exercise, and started immediately to return to Sai Kung. A Mr. Chan Shing of Tai Po had a petrol station on Waterloo Road, and Mr. Chan drove Mr. Tse and five other people towards Sha Tin. They were stopped at a roadblock and were not allowed to drive into the New Territories. He left the car, with some difficulty bypassed the roadblock, spent some time with a friend in Chap Wai Kon (Sha Tin), and spent the night at Wu Kai Sha. He arrived in Sai Kung the next day, before the Japanese appeared", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208787, "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-1979", "page_number": 244, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "4\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nWork of the Association in its early years\n\n217\n\nSoon after the port of Hong Kong was opened [again] in the last year of the reign of Hsien Feng in the Ch'ing dynasty (1860-61), there used to be a Nam Pak Hong Street (later renamed Bonham Strand West). At this favourable location our predecessors set up firms dealing in native products from south and north China. The following firms were among those then established one after another: the Kwong Mau Tai Hong and the Woo Kee Hong of Mr. Chiu Yue-tin, a celebrity of Kwangtung origin, the Hau Fung Hong of Mr. Lo Chor-san, the Hop Hing Hong of Mr. Lau Lo-tak, the Siu Fung Hong of Messrs. Fung Ping-shan and Kwong Tsz-ming, the Kwan Mau Hong (in Wing Lok Street West) of Mr. Li Sau-hin, the Wah On Hong of Mr. Chan Yue-fan, the Yue Wo Loong of Mr. Chan Sik-nin, the Yuen Fat Hong of Messrs. Ko Mun-wah and Chan Chun-chuen, celebrities of Chiu Chau origin, the Yuen Sing Fat Hong, the Kam Yue Fung Hong and the Kam Sing Lee Hong of Mr. Choi Si-kit, the Yue Tak Sing Hong and the Kwong Tak Fat Hong of Mr. Chan Tin-san, the Kin Tye Lung of Messrs. Chan Wun-wing and Chan Tsz-tan, the Ng Yuen Hing Hong of Mr. Ng Lei-hing, a celebrity of Fukien origin, the Chui Tak Loong Hong of Messrs. Wu Ting-sam and Wong Ting-ming, the Hau Tak Hong of Mr. Kwok Yim-sing and his brother(s), the Yi Tai Hong and the Lee Yuen Cheung Hong of a business group of Shantung origin. With the exception of Messrs. Chan Yue-fan, Chan Sik-nin and Kwok Yin-sing, all the aforesaid gentlemen have now deceased.\n\nIn 1868, with the concerted initiative and efforts of the said Messrs. Chiu Yue-tin, Chan Chun-chuen, Fung Ping-shan, Choi Kit-si, Chan Tin-sau and Wu Ting-sam, the Nam Pak Hong Association was founded in Bonham Strand West near its junctions with Wing Lok Street and Queen's Road. Then the objectives of the Association were to promote members' welfare and market prosperity, to assist the police in the maintenance of law and order in the neighbourhood and to formulate plans for the prevention of fires and alleviation of disasters. On the first floor of the Association building was the office, where regulations and business rules of the Association were decided, Directors and Managers of the Association mutually elected, and monthly meetings held. For the first term, the Chairman of the Board of Directors was Mr. Chiu Yue-tin and the Manager was Mr. Lau Lo-tak. The latter mana-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209890, "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-1983", "page_number": 149, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "127\n\nthe 18th to 20th days of the 1st moon, the birthday of the earth god. To celebrate the occasion, a Committee of twelve members was formed. One of these was the Chairman (Chung Li), one the Vice-chairman (Hip Li) and the rest were ordinary Committee members (Chik Li). All the Committee members were chosen from among those interested in taking up the post by casting divining blocks before the gods on the altar, as at Ap Lei Chau; thus, as we have seen, in a different way from the nearer Sheung Fung and Tai Ping Shan shrines. The Committee was also responsible for subsidizing the function in case there was a deficit.\n\nThe annual celebrations took place, not at the shrine, but in Hau Wo Street, a few hundred yards away. A temporary metal structure of about 12' X 8' was erected for the purpose of staging a puppet show. Sacrifice was offered and joss papers and candles were burnt. To conclude the ceremony, there was a distribution of gifts, mainly rice and other foodstuffs, to the poor of the district.\n\nAccording to Mr. Chow, local residents were generally very interested in this event. They believed that by celebrating the festival they would be more fortunate and prosperous throughout the whole year.\"4\n\nThe Earth God Shrines at Nam On Fong and Sai Wan Ho, Shau Kei Wan\n\nI turn now to other shrines of this kind at Shau Kei Wan, in the eastern part of Hong Kong Island. Shau Kei Wan has a good harbour and was a fishing port and boat people's anchorage long before 1841. Its land population was given as 1,200 persons in the first Hong Kong census of May 1841. By 1860 it was listed as having 2,561 land dwellers and 4,338 boat people. In the mid 1860s it was said to have had 307 houses and shops, and 603 boats. In the 1871 census it had 2,360 land inhabitants. At the 1911 census the land population had risen to 11,727 and the number of persons on boats was given as 6,440.5\n\nThese figures include not only the town section of Shau Kei Wan, long known as Tung Tai Kai (東大街) or Great East Street, but a number of villages, and stone quarries with their attached", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210863, "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-1986", "page_number": 214, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "197\n\ndisturbance. Tong A-chick was in charge. Some of the combatants of the previous night were present. They were from the E Shing Society which was a bitter enemy of the Yeung Wo Association, of which Tong A-chick was one of the directors.\n\nThey questioned his impartiality. Tempers flew, threats were made, and blows exchanged. The climax came when a group of armed men rushed into the meeting from the street attempting to break it up. A-chick sought the nearest exit, a window. Flying through it, he landed on a sheet iron awning which collapsed with a terrible clatter.\n\nHis unceremonious exit and consequent clatter stopped the turmoil inside the building, but it roused the neighbourhood.\n\nIn due time the police arrived. The whole lot were hauled into court for disturbing the peace and riotous behaviour.\n\nThe E Shing group tried to claim that it was all due to the presence of Tong A-chick, who had tried to act as mediator. He, as usual, ably defended himself, “reciting every circumstance of the occurrence in a clear and impartial manner, in the English language, with which he was perfectly conversant.”\n\nOccasionally the associations were given a favourable notice in the press. In 1853 a band of desperadoes had been harassing the countryside. A Company of Rangers had captured the leader of the gang, a man named Joaquim, and thus brought an end to the terrorising.\n\nTong A-chick, as representative of the Chinese district associations, presented a cash gift to the Rangers in appreciation. The San Francisco Herald commented: “The Chinese here, although in no manner bound, have with commendable liberality come forward with this contribution of $1,000 in token of their appreciation of the Rangers' services. They have proved themselves in this city on many occasions a liberal and public-spirited people.”\n\nTong A-chick as leader in the Chinese community during its first decade in California guided it through a difficult period. His", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210866, "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-1986", "page_number": 217, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "200\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nof the China Mail had been unfriendly to both him and his brother and was ready to publish any unfavourable report concerning the Tong family.\n\n-\n\nIn September 1856, the editor commented: \"Numbers of the Tong family connected with the Hongkong Government have an unfortunate knack of getting themselves into scrapes, for we are told that A-chick... has latterly been rendering himself obnoxious to his countrymen in California as head of one of the hway (associations), and that even his life is in danger. We have heard that it is A-chick's intention to return to Hongkong.”\n\nA-chick did not spend all his time visiting the Governor as representative of the Chinese, acting as community peacemaker, drafting letters setting forth the Chinese side of a controversy, or appearing in court. He was also a successful businessman.\n\nNotices relating to his first arrival in California speak of him as an associate of his uncle. Their firm was that of Tun Wo and Company. Soon, however, Tong A-chick was the manager of the Sam Wo Company. There may have been an amalgamation of the two firms. The store of Sam Wo was on Sacramento Street above Kearny. It was in the heart of the Chinese commercial centre.\n\nAn 1853 account of the Chinese section says it was \"the spot on which they first located their canvas houses in 1849, and they have stuck to it with remarkable tenacity.\"\n\nThe San Francisco establishment had direct links with a firm in Hongkong owned by the Tong family. The United States Customs House records for the port of San Francisco contain several ship manifests of goods shipped by the Hongkong firm and consigned to Tong A-chick.\n\nThese manifests show the kind of commodity in demand by the Chinese in California, items which could not be procured easily locally. Without these familiar products the sojourner would have felt more estranged and homesick.\n\nThe most popular imports were waterchestnuts, oranges,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212302, "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-1990", "page_number": 244, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "221\n\nabout 20 headquarters staff. Shortly before Hong Kong was founded in the 1830s, this company controlled one-third of all foreign trade with China.\n\nJardine's\n\nToday, the best known of Hong Kong's traders is still Jardine Matheson, which predates the birth of the colony by nine years, although some say there has been an over-concentration on Jardine's history at the expense of other firms. Nonetheless it is the oldest, still thriving, western trading house in the Far East, having been established in the reign of William IV (1830-7).\n\nIn 1817 William Jardine decided to enter commerce, and, on an introduction by Hollingworth Magniac, from 1822 to 1824 he took charge of Charles Magniac and Company (Charles and Hollingworth were brothers) which was in financial difficulties. James Matheson arrived in Canton in 1820 and formed Matheson and Company. In 1828, Jardine and Matheson joined forces. The name Magniac was dropped, and the new enterprise was established by the two Scotsmen in 1832. The name remains the same to this day.\n\nWilliam Jardine had been a ship's surgeon in the Honourable East India Company from 1802-16. He retired to Scotland in 1838 (some records say 1839) and died in 1843. Matheson left the East in 1842 and took an active part in running the firm from Britain. He died in 1878 aged 82. Both were Members of Parliament in the 1840s. William Jardine had already returned to Scotland when the firm set up business in Hong Kong. When the first land sales were held in Hong Kong on 14th June 1841, Jardine's built godowns (warehouses) on land purchased in what is now Queensway. In 1842, these were sold to the Royal Navy for stores. Immediately Jardine's started to build an office, wharves, a slipway for ships, workshops, stables, houses, and a junior mess at East Point, on an isolated promontory. They also built godowns which had thick walls of granite blocks. The site was close to the present Yee Wo Street (fi) which takes its name from the Chinese name of the company (meaning 'pleasant harmony'), although the Chinese name for the firm is more often romanised as Ewo. All the original buildings have been demolished.\n\nOther places named after the company include Jardine's Bazaar", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212313, "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-1990", "page_number": 255, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "232\n\nCompany, was originally established in Shanghai after John Macgregor and Jack Caldbeck purchased the business of George Smith and Company. Macgregor had come East to seek his fortune after serving in the Royal Navy in the Crimean War. Caldbeck had been the P&O agent in Singapore. Unlike other firms, Caldbeck Macgregor specialised in wines and spirits. From its original base in Shanghai, which started in 1864, it opened branches along the China coast with outposts in Peking and Tientsin doing especially good trade.\n\nIn 1882 an office was established in London, and a branch opened in Hong Kong in 1889. The latter was started partly because of the popularity here of horse racing. Although employees in some firms, such as Dodwell's, had been discouraged from taking part in the sport, the partners of Caldbeck Macgregor were able to investigate the potential of various wines and spirits at race meetings. It soon became the best known firm in the liquor business in the Far East. Caldbeck Macgregor was much more of a family concern than most organisations until this control was lost in the late 1960s.\n\nHutchison's\n\nIn 1877 John Du Flon Hutchison, aged 22, came to Hong Kong to join Robert S. Walker and Company who were merchants in Gough Street. Known as Wo Kee in Chinese (和記), the firm opened for business about 1860. Probably in the 1880s he began trading on his own, as John D. Hutchison, and, in 1893, with one assistant named W.M. Watson, his company operated from Stanley Street. Hutchison died in Shanghai in 1920, although he had sold his firm in 1917 to T.E. Pearce.\n\nJohn Douglas Clague (much later Sir Douglas) had been captured by the Japanese in Hong Kong in 1941, but managed to escape from Sham Shui Po prisoner of war camp in 1942, and, with the help of Chinese partisans, Clague made his way over the hills into China. There he served with the British Army Aid Group.\n\nWith a brilliant war record behind him Colonel Clague became Taipan of Hutchison's in the late 1940s. It expanded rapidly taking over many other companies which had interests in a variety of fields. But the Group over-extended itself and ran into financial difficulties in the 1970s. As a result an Australian businessman who had lived in\n\nPage 255\n\nPage 256", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213103, "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-1993", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "153\n\nwas dangerously exposed to storms behind low and flimsy buns. This little temple almost certainly dates from the original reclamation for the saltpans.\n\nThe ferry pier and the Tin Hau Temple were built on the foreshore, about 200 yards from the town proper. Chan Hip-tsun and the other elders of the Shap Yeuk had designed the town proper as an approximately square walled enclosure, with two east-west streets, joined by a north-south street somewhat east of the centre of the town.* The town had four gates, two each to the east and the west. The most important was the Upper East Gate, which faced the fine three-span granite bridge built by the Shap Yeuk over the often violent waters of the Sha Tau Kok River,\n\nThe Shap Yeuk had built the walls and roads of their new market, but the shop units were built by investors from villages of the Shap Yeuk area willing to take them up. These investors then built over their lot, from the road back to the already completed wall.\n\nOnce the Shap Yeuk had succeeded in their political aims of freeing their district from the influence of outsiders, and had founded their market and its temple, they thereafter ran the district and market through the Council of the Shap Yeuk (the Tung Wo Kuk, \"The Council for Peace in the East\"). The day-to-day management of the market was handled by a Headman, appointed by the Tung Wo Kuk. He adjudicated minor disputes, and had at his disposal certain trust funds, and the income from the ferry tender, and from rent of the town weigh-beam. He let tenders to sweep the streets (the street-sweeper was expected to reimburse himself from the sale of the wastes as fertiliser), and supervised the Town Watch, recruited from youngsters of the surrounding villages, whose job was to maintain order, especially at night. The Council of the Shap Yeuk, the Headman, and the Town Watch, are all mentioned by the Basel missionaries in the 1850s, and there can be no doubt that the management structure of the town and district was in place from the first foundation of the town.\n\nThe market founded by the Shap Yeuk was called by them Tung Wo Market, “Eastern Peace Market”, but it was more usually\n\n1\n\n* See Map 2, taken from a map of 1853 prepared by the Basel missionaries.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213110, "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-1993", "page_number": 178, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "160\n\nChung Ferry. Finally, the Japanese attacked Sha Tau Kok in 1938, 1939, and 1940, before taking it over late in 1940,\n\n41\n\nThese periods of disturbance caused serious problems to the Sha Tau Kok villagers. Their sole desire was to sell their vegetables and firewood, and buy their salt and household goods, but this was, year after year, interfered with by political problems. Sha Tau Kok was rarely - except during the Boycott - the centre of the disturbances, but it was almost always \"in the front line\", full of intrigue, nervous military, and difficulties. A market shop-owner in Sha Tau Kok was executed by the military in about 1935, in an event still a talking point in the villages, probably for being involved with the rebels to the east. An underground Communist cell was established in the 1930s in the market, centred on one of the teachers in the Tung Wo School, with the job of encouraging smuggling of strategic goods to Sha Yue Chung and the guerrillas, and of indoctrinating suitable youngsters, to prepare for an extension of rebel activity to the immediate Sha Tau Kok area.\n\n41\n\nThe elders of the Shap Yeuk continued to function throughout this troubled period as the managers of the market at Sha Tau Kok, but less effectively than before. The strong military presence in the town, the close Government interest in it, and the elders' inability to control the Customs, greatly weakened the Shap Yeuk as the effective local administration. The guns which had been placed by the Shap Yeuk in the gun-towers they had built to guard the bridge were confiscated very soon after the 1911 revolution, and the eastern gun-tower, at the front of the Tung Wo School, was taken over as the military barracks at about the same time. The warlord and Kuomintang administrations were usually unwilling to discuss problems with the local elders - noticeably so compared with the District Officer in the New Territories - and so the elders and their Council declined to having responsibility, effectively, only for those things the officials could not be bothered to interfere with, especially the running of the market night-watch and cleaning services.\n\nBy 1910, the elders were already talking of moving the market over the frontier into the New Territories, with its better security, better villager-administration relationships, and absence of Customs problems. Nothing, however, was done until 1925, when the chaos of the Boycott started to push the market across the frontier. Shops began to be built on the New Territories side of the border street in 1925, and this process", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213144, "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-1993", "page_number": 212, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "194\n\n14 The oldest surviving dated object is the bell, of 1922 (D Faure, A Ng B Luk, F. M. Xianggang Beiming Huabian, Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, Urban Council, Hong Kong, Vol 3, p 733) The temple, however, appears in the Block Crown Lease (1905), and the local villagers believe it is old\n\n15 The Sam Heung villagers have recently elected a tablet at the resited replacement temple, stating that the temple was first built in the Chia Ch'ing reign (1796-1820), and that the Ta Tsiu was instituted as soon as the temple was built While the grounds for these statements are not given, they are reasonable, and probably correct, although a date late in the reign is likely\n\n16 D Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op cit. p 107\n\n17\n\nA copy of this genealogy is in the collection of New Territories historical documents at United College, Chinese University of Hong Kong I am indebted to Dr D Faure for drawing my attention to this reference\n\nOur information on mid-nineteenth century Sha Tau Kok comes primarily from documents of the Basel Mission, which had a Mission Station in the town 1849-1854, and whose missionaries regularly visited it in the late nineteenth century The missionaries rented four houses from a local village elder, near the western end of Upper Street, backing onto the wall The missionaries drew a map of the town in 1853, plans of typical shop units in 1849 and 1853, and wrote a long description of the town and district in 1853 – Map 2 is a re-drawing of the missionaries' map of 1853, corrected by measurements taken from the 1924 aerial photograph of the town (13 November 1924 original in the Department of Geography, University of Hong Kong) The written description of 1853 is Basel Mission archive, doc Al-2, Nr 44, “Half-Yearly Report of the missionary Rev P Winnes, from 1st January to 1st July 1853\", printed in translation in P H. Hase. \"Sha Tau Kok in 1853”, in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol 30, 1990, pp 281-297 See PH Hase, \"The Alliance of Ten\", op cit, for redrawings of the plans of mid-nineteenth century shop units, and also for a drawing of a cross-section of such a shop unit I am indebted to Rev Carl Smith for drawing my attention to the importance of the Basel Mission documents to the history of Sha Tau Kok, and for allowing me to use his transcripts and notes I would also like to thank Mrs W Haas, and the staff of the Basel Mission archive in the preparation of this article\n\n19 The Tung Wo Kuk was so named in direct emulation of the older Punti Council in Sham Chun, which was also known as \"The Council for Peace in the East\", PA, Tung Ping Kuk - the choice of the name Tung Wo Kuk must be seen, in these circumstances, as a marked sign of local pride and self-confidence\n\n20 See n 11\n\n21\n\nThe villagers believe that the name Sha Tau Kok is taken from a poem by a Ch'ing official who passed by and was so impressed by the beauty of the sun rising above the sand-dunes that he wrote a poem on it ADV AEAA. \"The sun rises from the sand-dunes the moon hangs where land and ocean meet\" I have heard this story from a Sheung Wo Hang elder, and see also Shatoulaode quwer xuanguanbu (Sha...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 } ]