[ { "id": 206765, "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-1973", "page_number": 42, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "36 \n\nA. J. S. LACK \n\nAt the same meeting another unofficial member, Mr. Osborne,* mounted a quite blistering attack upon Government's past failure to provide adequately for the shelter of the boat people in Hong Kong. He referred to the typhoon of 1841 and to the storm of 1874 in which over 2,000 lives were lost within the space of 6 hours and 35 foreign vessels were wrecked or badly damaged. He claimed that the screaming of those in distress on the water could be heard in the mid levels of the town above the noise of the storm. He went on to refer to subsequent and more recent typhoons, one of which (1906) had exacted a toll of 10,000 lives in two hours. He demanded to know what it was that had been done with the lessons of previous years, and came to the reluctant conclusion that very little had been done. He castigated Government's lavish expenditure on various new public buildings, notably the Supreme Court, the Harbour Office, and the intended Post Office Building, as being quite beyond the bounds of what was required, and ended with these remarks,\n\nDuring a rather long residence in the Colony, I have had exceptional opportunities of coming into contact with the boat population. Though, like most humanity, their character is a blend of the good and the bad, there is one quality they possess in marked degree, which has always commanded my deep admiration, and that is their patience and philosophic bearing under circumstances of trial and suffering. In their name, Sir, and apart from the commercial aspect to which I have alluded, in the name of thousands who have already suffered in silence the misery wrought by these destructive storms, I appeal to your Excellency that there shall be no further delay in giving them the shelter which it is our clear and bounden duty to provide.\n\nThese words put the officials on their mettle. At the next meeting of the Council, the Director of Public Works and His Excellency the Governor were at pains to assure members that something was going to be done about the typhoon shelter: in fact, they had purchased a dredger on which to begin work on the foundations of the shelter. This provoked an unexpected row because some members considered that another dredger also for sale in the harbour at that\n\n* Edward Osborne, listed in Who's Who in the Far East as Secretary of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Co., b. 1861, with P & O Steam Navigation Co. in London and Hong Kong 1880-1889. Director of Hong Kong Hotel, Dairy Farm, Steam Laundry, etc.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207335, "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY\n\n95\n\nentering the harbour, George Woodcock affirms of seamen in the Far East that they 'provided its nearest equivalent to a European proletariat; out of their ranks emerged its shifting population of poor whites and also a high proportion of its adventurers'. He concludes that 'on shore the status of the seamen remained, as it always had been, anomalous. His occupation was essential to the very existence of British communities in the Far East, and yet he was always an outsider, disturbing and distrusted',10\n\nThe author of a booklet issued in 1891 to commemorate the jubilee of Hong Kong claimed that\n\nthe practice of the handicrafts in Hong Kong appears to be entirely in the hands of the Chinese; there is a considerable European population, but few are mechanics, and the Portuguese decline all forms of labour, the aspirations of both running towards the counting-house and the banker's desk.11 The suggestion that there were few European mechanics in Hong Kong is incorrect if we realise that many European overseers in the dockyards and other industrial undertakings and utilities were expected not only to supervise the labour force but to look after and repair machines. Many overseers in such enterprises were skilled engineers, who had served their apprenticeship in the engine-rooms of the British mercantile marine. The Taikoo Sugar Refinery at Quarry Bay, owned by Butterfield and Swire, gave direct employment to fifty or sixty Europeans as well as many hundreds of Chinese. A journalist, J. S. Thomson, wrote of this refinery that it\n\nwas\n\na marvellous study in Scotch sociology. There is a company reservoir and hospital in the hills; a cable to carry European overseers five hundred feet over the gullies to the fever-free bungalows on the cliffs; Company model tenements at inexpensive rents; a Company loan fund for overseers to bring out Scotch wives...12\n\nThe China Sugar Refinery, owned by Jardine, Matheson, also utilised the services of at least twenty-five European engineers, mechanics and overseers. At the end of the century, the Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company employed about 800 Chinese, chiefly natives of Swatow, supervised by European overseers, many of whom were skilled mechanics. Other undertakings, such as the Green Island Cement Company, the Hong Kong", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208494, "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": 218, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "202\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\ngilded 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.\n\nMalacca too, has strong Fukienese connections, and again I would expect this couple to have been of Fukienese origin.\n\nHong Kong.\n\nOctober, 1979\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nMARBLE HALL*\n\nMarble 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.\n\nThe owner\n\nSir 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.\n\n*Plates 24-32 illustrate this Note,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208613, "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": 70, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n43\n\ninto the harbor fairway. Our first thought was that the Japanese were attempting a landing on Hong Kong, especially as soon after the barges left the docks, shells began falling all around them. One or two of the barges were hit and immediately the same kind of smoke came from the burning barge. Shells kept falling all around, but few of the boats were hit or sunk and they continued drifting until they came to a standstill some hundreds of yards away from the docks, and where they remained for several days. Apparently the British were trying to destroy their own supplies lest they fall into the hands of the Japanese.\n\nFriday, bringing the news of the Japanese occupation of Kowloon, was a tense day for the citizens of Hong Kong. Many of the Kowloon residents had already moved over to Hong Kong, others were caught in Hong Kong and now could not return to their homes or families on the other side. From our vantage point in the Bishop's house we could look across the harbor and pick out familiar buildings and spots, but all along the dock area and at the Kowloon Ferry wharf there was not a sign of life, and Kowloon seemed a wholly deserted city. However, at one time, a few British shells from Hong Kong batteries spattered against the buildings near the Star Ferry, but nothing could be seen moving in that area. Later on we learned that the Japanese were setting up big mobile guns in the streets just back from the Ferry. We also learned later that when British lorries tried to move through the streets of Kowloon, Fifth Columnists often obstructed their passage, and as soon as the Japanese began to infiltrate into the city, looting began. It was also said, but we cannot vouch for the truth of the statement, that a number of British and Chinese police remained in Kowloon to attempt to maintain order, even when the Japanese had arrived. The regular troops, of course, had all crossed to Hong Kong. During all this time the daily papers were printing communications from the Governor's Office that the situation was well in hand and that there need be no anxiety for the future.\n\nThe next day, Saturday, there was a lull in fighting, and out of the silence and gloom which had settled over Kowloon a lone ferry or tug boat could be seen slowly leaving the Star Ferry Wharf and heading for Hong Kong. At its mast was a white flag, and it bore a peace mission, consisting of a few Japanese officers, who had with them as hostages, two British women. They were met at Blake Pier", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212306, "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": 248, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "The Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company\n\n735\n\nAnother important associate company of Jardine's until the mid-1980s was 'Wharf, which was a pioneer in the development of Kowloon. The firm was established in 1886 by Paul Chater and Kerfoot Hughes. About the same time Jardine's started a wharf at West Point, but largely because of labour difficulties with Chinese lightermen Kowloon Wharf and Jardine's Wharf amalgamated. In 1887, they acquired the P&O (Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company) wharf at West Point although this was later sold,\n\nSir Paul Chater\n\nIt is appropriate here to say something about Anglophile Catchick Paul Chater, born of Armenian parents in 1846, who came to Hong Kong from Calcutta at the age of 18. He started work as a clerk in the Bank of Hindustan, China and Japan, but soon branched out on his own as an exchange and bullion broker. Chater later became a business associate of the Sassoons, who were Jewish merchants. Chater's interests were many and varied. In addition to Hong Kong Land and Kowloon Wharf they included substantial real estate holdings. Hong Kong Bank, Dairy Farm, Star Ferry, Hong Kong Tramways, and Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels. Chater was also a pioneer in the 57 acre Praya reclamation scheme, in Central District, which included Des Voeux and Connaught Roads, and is now one of the most valuable areas of land on earth.\n\nAlthough he was sometimes accused of showing indecent regard for Royalty and all things British, including cricket, others believed, \"Where Chater goes today Jardine's follow tomorrow\". Venturesome in business, few men have contributed so much to Hong Kong as he did, and he worked closely with the British for several decades. One of the busiest roads in Central, as well as Chater Garden and Catchick Street, is named after him. As a self-made man with considerable foresight he was generous, and he became a public benefactor and patron of the arts. Unfortunately, the Chater collection of paintings was lost during World War II. Sir Paul, who served on both the Legislative and Executive Councils, died in 1926 an honoured and respected man.\n\nButterfield and Swire\n\nAnother of the great Hongs, Swire's, is Jardine's competitor, even", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212327, "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": 269, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "246\n\nlater, made up part of the Lombard Insurance Company.\n\nHong Kong Hotel Company\n\nThe Company started in 1866, and the Hong Kong Hotel opened in 1867 on the site of the defunct Dent and Company's offices on the then waterfront at Queen's Road Central. In 1893, in addition to the 'Hong Kong', other leading hotels included 'Windsor' and 'Victoria', in Central, and 'Mount Austin' and 'Peak' hotels, both on the Peak.\n\nThe Professions\n\nAs well as traders, a few British professionals set up practices in Hong Kong in the last century. Victor Hobart Deacon, for example, arrived in the Colony in 1880 to join a firm of lawyers that was already 30 years old. In the 1840s, the nearest lawyer was said to be in Calcutta.\n\nAt about the same time there were a number of people who described themselves as architects, but they were probably only draughtsmen. One such man was named Langer, who arrived in 1842 to supervise the erection of buildings for Jardine's. He was stricken with fever after only working for two months. The civilian architects produced nothing of the calibre of the military architects who designed such structures as Murray House and Headquarters House.\n\nWilson and Salway, architects and engineers, were established in 1872; and Leigh and Orange, although not the first, was among the early practices to be set up. This latter firm dates back to 1874, under the name of Sharp and Danby who were engineers, and in 1894 it became Leigh and Orange. The founding fathers were ex-Public Works Department employees. The Ohel Leah synagogue in Robinson Road, completed in 1902, is one of their buildings, as were the old Queen's Building and the old Prince's Building, both completed in Central in 1904.\n\nOther structures, since demolished, were the entire premises of the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company, at Hung Hom, and the wharves and premises of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214050, "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": 118, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "85\n\nWharf, one of the oldest landing stages, originally consisted of a simple wooden pier which needed to be replaced as successive reclamations advanced the seafront. In the mid-1880s when it was rebuilt it was still the principal landing place on the Island, being by this time a substantial wooden structure. Numerous other piers and jetties have always been scattered along the north shore which generally served the smaller-sized coastal and harbour shipping, larger ocean-going vessels making increasing use of the deep-water facilities in Kowloon. In 1911, the main piers in the central district were Queen's Pier (rebuilt in the mid-1920s), Kowloon (Star) Ferry Pier, Blake Pier (previously Pedder's Wharf) and the old P&O Jetty. By 1930 there were still some 30 piers and jetties on the Island jutting out into the harbour. The effects of severe typhoons caused immense damage to vessels and facilities, and heavy loss of life, for example that in 1874 resulting in the deaths of 2,000 persons; old photographs show a devastated harbour with the remnants of numerous piers sticking out of the wreckage-strewn waters.\n\nBy 1887, on the Mainland there were three principal jetties, ranging in length from about 110 to 145 metres lying just north of the south-west tip of Kowloon peninsula and a 150m-long vertical seawall to the south. The dock area itself incorporated a 1.2km-long narrow-gauge steel tramway system which was manually operated along the wharfage and through the extensive godowns. As a result of the devastating 1906 typhoon, in which 10,000 lives were lost (over 2% of the total population), enormous damage was caused to the existing wharfs and to the new Star Ferry pier which was completely severed and marooned from the land. A 200m-long 13m-wide wharf with 9 metres of water at low tide was added to the complex in 1916 which was long and deep enough to allow the largest ship visiting Hong Kong at that time to come alongside. By 1925 there were already 18 deep-water berths available in Kowloon.\n\nEarly in the century there were also piers and wharves for passenger ferries and commercial vessels in other locations, for instance in 1904 a berth was constructed at Lai Chi Kok to serve the oil tank farm and, shortly afterwards, at the end of Boundary Street there was a 36m-long 2m-wide pier with sufficient depth of water to enable freight to be transferred to and from steam launches.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 } ]