[ { "id": 205613, "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": 155, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "150 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\ncanal which would give access to warehouses and so on built in the Valley (a plan which A. T. Gordon, the Land Officer, endorsed in the 'dream' of the future City of Victoria which he communicated to Pottinger in 1843).4 But if Pottinger's description is accurate, it would have taken a good deal of imagination to see it that way. \n\nThe East Point site was purchased, at the first Land Sale on 14 June 1841, in the name of Captain William Morgan, a ship's captain who may have been Jardine's Hong Kong manager, and the actual area purchased was not specified then or when Pottinger's Second Land Committee was attempting to settle the Land Question in Hong Kong. We learn, from a later source, that it amounted to almost 170,000 square feet (about 3.4 acres). It is, however, often overlooked that the firm also purchased three other marine lots at the same sale: numbers 26, 27 and 28 and it is here that they had already commenced building by the time of the sale. This contention is upheld by a number of contemporary accounts of the sale. The Canton Register (predecessor of the Hong Kong Register) intimates that one purchaser had commenced building before the sale,6 \n\nWe are told in an unpublished history of the early years of Jardine, Matheson & Co. that in February 1841, within a month of the naval forces taking possession of the island, that they had erected a large matshed godown above the foreshore. An anonymous correspondent of the China Mail, writing 8 years after the event, but who attended the first sale in 1841, states that Matheson, in order to avoid the expenses involved in landing goods at Macao for transhipment, resolved to land a consignment of cotton at Hong Kong. To make this possible, he sent from Macao materials for the erection of a godown. This building, he avers, was four feet above the ground at the date of the sale and was sited on what later became known as the Commissariat Stores. The fact that they were building and had ground cleared, he continues, gave additional value to adjoining lots. As will be seen, Marine Lots 26, 27 and 28 were shortly to become the Commissariat stores. If further support is needed, I may quote from Tarrant's History of Hong Kong, published in 1861 or 1862: he states that \"some months before the sale......Messrs Jardine, Matheson & Co, erected those godowns which now form part of the Naval Yard, near the Canton Bazaar.” \n\nI", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205615, "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": 157, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "152\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nchose two lots to the west, which were designated at the time 72 and 73.12 It was at this time, however, that the firm definitely moved out to East Point and, immediately on the transaction regarding their property being settled, they proceeded to erect what became their main godowns at East Point.13 The firm had already acquired property in the area of East Point, Wongneichung and Sookunpoo, if only because no-one else seemed interested at the time and it was there cheaply for the asking. In October 1841, they instructed Morgan to obtain a grant of the hill behind East Point, which he immediately did14 and a little later obtained permission from Pottinger to purchase from its Chinese proprietors the slope on the east side of this hill.15 They also purchased from a merchant named Leighton a town lot on which he had built a godown16 and a suburban lot which he had prepared for building. Captain Morgan also secured a town lot on which a bazaar was built (Jardine's Bazaar not to be confused with Morgan's Bazaar near the barracks), and in addition he built a house on Caroline's Hill for himself which was known for a few years as Captain Morgan's Bungalow.\n\nLike most of the other large mercantile houses, Jardine, Matheson & Co. did not move their headquarters to Hong Kong from Macao until 1844. As shown above, there is ample evidence that East Point was not their first choice for the new headquarters, though the facility with which they were able to secure large areas of land at East Point may well have dictated a move even if the circumstances which I have described had not come about.\n\nHong Kong, 1968\n\nDAFYDD Emrys Evans\n\nMr. Evans, who has been on special leave of absence from the University of London, 1966-68, is a lecturer in the Department of Laws, London School of Economics and Political Science.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205994, "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-1970", "page_number": 74, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "CHINATOWN IN HONG KONG:\n\nTHE BEGINNINGS OF TAIPINGSHAN\n\nDAFYDD Emrys Evans\n\nIt seems unrealistic to talk of a 'Chinatown' in a place as obviously Chinese as Hong Kong. But for a very long time, there was indeed an area thought of by the Europeans as a part of the city into which they would not normally go. This area has, right from its inception, been known as \"Tai Ping Shan' or Mountain of Peace, after the Chinese name for the mountain the Europeans called Victoria Peak. When the British arrived in Hong Kong at the beginning of 1841, the north shore of the island was substantially unoccupied, there being nothing more than scattered huts between the village of Sai Ying Pun in the west and Wong Nei Chung in the east. The principal site for the new city lay in the present Central District of Hong Kong, and the first areas built up by the Europeans (apart from the waterside godowns and houses which extended from the Central Market to Causeway Bay) lay around the present Central Magistracy but rapidly extended within the first three years of the Colony's existence east and west of that spot. Although a small number of Chinese obtained grants of land in this area it is true to say that the town was exclusively European (with, of course, a number of Parsee merchants from British India) from the line of the present Garden road as far as the present Aberdeen Street and up the hill to Hollywood Road. At the time of the Colony's inception there were never more than a few hundred Europeans contrasted with several thousand Chinese who came as tradesmen and artisans. Where, then, did the Chinese live?\n\nApart from the small town that Jardine, Matheson & Co. built out at East Point, there were three principal areas where the incoming Chinese settled at first. It is known that in the early days after June, 1841 a good many matshed huts sprang up on the hillside to the west of the area later to be the site of the main part of the town (and these were destroyed by the great typhoon in August, 1841) and one stretch of the waterfront was 'taken over'. As early as August 1841 the 'Lower Bazaar' was forming in the area of what later became Jervois Street and Bonham", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209775, "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": 34, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "REVD. CARL T. SMITH'S NOTES ON THE SO KON PO VALLEY AND VILLAGE\n\nSo Kon Po can be translated as \"the straw broom plain\", or possibly, \"the straw broom landing place\". The valley is a pocket with hills closing in at its seaward end. The hill to the north is the site of Tai Hang Village and Tiger Balm Garden. To the south-west is Jardine's Lookout, and to the south-east is Caroline Hill. There are two principal roads, both circular, the Eastern Hospital Road and the Caroline Hill Road. The original So Kon Po district extended to the north-west of the valley itself, that is, to the north-east side of the old East Point Hill, now the area of Hysan Avenue and Lee Gardens. In the present area of Jardine's Bazaar, Irving Street and Keswick Street there was probably a Chinese settlement at the time the British occupied Hong Kong. In 1842 the population of this village of So Kon Po was given as eighty. The valley drained into the sea near the present junctions of Yee Woh Street, Causeway Road and Tung Lo Wan Road. Tung Lo Wan was the name of the bay at the seaward end of the valley; the bay has now been reclaimed to form the Patterson Street and Victoria Park area.\n\nThe original cultivators of the valley seem to have been the Wong (#) family. A few people in the village were engaged in ship-building and fishing.\n\nCapt. Belcher, commander of H.M. survey ship \"Sulphur\", landed on Hong Kong island in January 1841. As the most suitable site for a settlement, he suggested a spot \"at nearly the east end of Hong Kong bay, in two small indents; one opening into the valley of Wongneichong and another to the north-east [the So Kon Po valley]. A small promontory [East Point] of about 220 yards in length and 120 in breadth, with a frontage on both sides, has a landing place for boats at the point at all times of the tide. Both of these small bays are dry at low water spring tides, and would be easily gained from the sea\". (Canton Register, 7 Dec. 1841)\n\nCaptain Belcher's suggestion was not followed, but Jardine, Matheson and Company considered the East Point promontory,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209776, "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": 35, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "13\n\neven though removed from the rest of the new settlement, as a possible site for their operations and accordingly bought Marine Lot 52 at the first land sale in June 1841. When the government took over their godowns and property in the Victoria Barracks area, they began building in 1843 on their lot at East Point (according to a source dated 1849). However, an on-the-spot report published in January 1842 describes a visit to the east end of the island and mentions buildings being built there: \"At Mr. Gillespie's [in Wanchai] the road crosses a granite bridge [at the present junction of Queen's Road East and Stone Nullah Lane] and ascends rather suddenly to a gap cut through a hill which commands a view of the whole valley and village of Wongneichung and the road to T'ai Tam winding up. If one pursues the branch which crosses the valley and goes on east one arrives at the village of Sookon-poo, at present a sequestered, well-wooded, and very pretty part of the island. From the west end of this village a point runs out into the sea whereon a European building has already been commenced. . . the road to the cast terminates at the village of Soo-kon-poo.”\n\nJardine's built a range of houses and shops just beyond their Marine Lot at East Point. These were for the convenience of their employees. The presence of the firm attracted Chinese who settled just beyond Jardine property. Their settlement, built in a haphazard manner, was an extension and enlargement of the old So Kon Po village. In 1847 the Government cleared the area and laid out some thirty lots, which were then sold to shopkeepers. Near the centre of these lots was built the So Kon Po market. This area is the core of the present Jardines Bazaar.\n\nIn 1843, a Hong Kong newspaper commented on a statement made in The Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review that the government in Hong Kong had granted to private individuals whole villages of the original inhabitants of the island. The local newswriter claimed this was untrue:\n\n\"The only village near any location in allotment is that at the Point. It is true the proprietors (wishing perhaps to be Laird of that ilk) did, for protection, enclose it within the ring fence of his own allotment, but at the request of the villagers themselves. The Government, however, immediately", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211247, "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-1987", "page_number": 308, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "283\n\nStudies among the Boat-People of Hong Kong\" between pages 3-101 of Barbara E. Ward's Through Other Eyes, Essays in Understanding 'Conscious Models' Mostly in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, The Chinese University Press, 1985). See also, especially, her \"Kau Sai, An Unfinished Manuscript” in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 25 (1985), pp. 27-118.\n\nFor information on groups of Tanka in some other traditional anchorages in Hong Kong and the New Territories, see my The Rural Communities of Hong Kong, Studies and Themes (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1983), chapters 2 and 4 at pp. 34-37, 43-44, 61-62, 68-69 and associated notes, especially at pp. 246 and 254. Their numbers could be small. The anchorage at Shek Pik on Lantau Island had its own long-established Tanka fishermen. In 1957 there were six families there, all from the same clan, and according to the older men their fathers and grandfathers (at least) had been born there. This information was obtained directly from them.\n\nSince writing the above, I have also found a copy of my friend's birth certificate, given to me in connection with some application he wished me to support. Under the laws of Hong Kong, births have had to be registered since an ordinance on the subject was first passed in 1896. However, observation was probably less than the law required, especially in the remoter parts of the territory or among the floating population. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to find that his birth had been registered, and that the entry \"When and where born\" stated “17th June 1941 Boat No. 168\". The informant required by law was \"Tse Kwan Ying, Midwife, 43 Jardine Bazaar, 1st Floor\". The certificate, or rather the copy made in 1956, is illustrated at Plate 26.\n\nVISIT TO THE IWATAYA DEPARTMENT STORE, FUKUOKA, JAPAN\n\nOur visit to the main store of the Mitsukoshi department chain in Tokyo was described in Notes and Queries, JHKBRAS, 26 (1986), 270-271.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212009, "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-1989", "page_number": 424, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "399\n\nTang Lung Chau, Tung Lo Wan got its new English name, Causeway Bay, from the new causeway.\n\nNowadays, the area of Hung Heung Lo Shan has been renamed Tai Hang, and Tang Lung Chau is included in the area of Causeway Bay.\n\nI\n\nNOTES\n\nANTHONY SIU KWOK-KIN\n\nThe names of So Kon Po and Wong Nai Chung first appeared in Chapter 2 of the San On Yuen Chi, Chia Ching edition XCR(85)72. This shows that they were established only after the abolition of the Edict of the Coastal Evacuation in early Ching Dynasty.\n\n2 See Chapter 12 of the San On Yuen Chi, Chia Ching edition GR1178/1922/32(III).\n\nThe Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club is situated Kellett Island which is by the entrance of the Cross Harbour Tunnel on Hong Kong side.\n\n4\n\nOn the three incense burners which are placed outside the Tin Hau Temple of Causeway Bay, the Chinese characters 'Tang Lung Chau Tin Hau Temple' can be seen.\n\n5 The couplets inscribed by the window of the Lotus Palace of Tai Hang show the name 'Lung Chau'.\n\nThe Tang Lung Chau Market dilapidation is still in existence in Jardine's Bazaar 603 in Causeway Bay.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "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 } ]