[ { "id": 211202, "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": 263, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "238 \n\nIf the correspondent opposing the park scheme was not able to look very clearly into the future, a writer who adopted the pen-name \"Atalanta\" was a better seer. True, he had to wait until 1904 for his vision to become reality. He advocated the building of a tramway from east to west as a jubilee scheme. It would benefit every resident \"male or female, child or adult, Chinese or Portuguese, Indian or European.\"\n\nA tram would provide easy access to the proposed park. Without a convenient way of getting there, he too thought it would be useless. He was more interested, however, in the beneficial effect a tram would have both for health and recreation in general.\n\nTo the west were the cool airs of Pokfulam, “and those citizens who are not able to live at the Peak can be transported on hot summer evenings to the other side of the island, there to be refreshed by the western breezes and the health-giving and invigorating perfume of the fir trees.”\n\nTo the east was the beach at Shaukiwan, \"where the little ones might get health and amusement by ‘paddling' while their parents may enjoy bathing or boating.\"\n\nEasy access by tram to a good beach would be welcomed, so the writer claimed, by “hundreds and thousands of our humble English and Portuguese fellow residents who, by their narrow means, are denied the luxury of a country villa at the Gap or Kellett's Ridge.\"\n\nNot all Portuguese were deprived of a summer villa, but few had them at the Peak. In the current issue of the Boletim do Instituto Luis de Camoes published in Macau, an article entitled \"The Portuguese in Hongkong and China” by the late Jose Pedro Braga describes some of the villas built by members of the Portuguese community at Pokfulam and Kowloon.\n\nThe advocate for the tram took a different view of Chinese attitudes towards sport than the writer of the other letter. He said they and the Portuguese did not play cricket and tennis simply for want of space.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212192, "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": 134, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "transferred their activities elsewhere: the evil reputation of Bias Bay nearby is well known. But British influence made itself felt in other ways, too. The \"foreign devils\" not only brought security; they built houses, roads and dockyards, so that a very large number of Chinese found Hongkong preferable to their native districts and came there to live. By 1938 the population was over two millions, including twenty-four thousand foreigners. It is true, of the Chinese no less than one million were only transient inhabitants, refugees from the Japanese wrath which was spreading over China. To these wretched thousands, Hongkong, for a time, was a sanctuary: as later in another part of the world, was England to the French, Belgian, Dutch and Norwegian refugees, who were to escape from German occupied territory.\n\nBehind Victoria, the cramped commercial hub of the island, a funicular Peak Tramway rises steeply to serve the numerous mansions, erected at varying levels, for taipans, who hope vainly to avoid the moist clinging heat of the long Hongkong summer. Some of the mansions look out over Victoria at the twin city of Kowloon on the mainland across the harbour: others, on the reverse slope, look out to sea, to Lantao island, still barren, to Lamma, in the foreground, and to Cheung Chau in the middle distance.\n\nHongkong was crowded. The hotels were full and so when we arrived, some weeks after leaving Nanking, my wife and I took rooms at the small hotel which an enterprising English couple had opened on Cheung Chau island. A special ferry from Victoria did the trip several times a day in about half an hour. There was quite a large fishing village, the rendezvous for many of the junks that frequent these waters. We lived on fish and strolled amongst the stunted pines and the empty bungalows of the summer visitors waiting until we could find more convenient accommodation. It was a pleasant change from the vicissitudes of Nanking.\n\nEventually we were able to get rooms in the Repulse Bay Hotel, famous as a honeymoon resort. It is on the side of Hongkong facing the open sea, near what is perhaps the best known bathing beach. A winding road over the hill through the Wong Nei Chong gap leads to Victoria, and in Deepwater Bay round the point there is a small nine-hole golf course.\n\nI remember one day we took the bus up to the Gap and got out", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212332, "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": 274, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "251\n\nbeing until this century. In the last decade of the 20th century, however, it provides three-quarters of the electricity consumed in Hong Kong. Not long after the Company placed what was reported to be the largest ever single order with British industry, in 1980, six members of the board were made Commanders of the British Empire. There have also been two Knighthoods in the Kadoorie family.\n\nTransport\n\nMotor transport was mainly introduced into Hong Kong in the present century, and, by 1909, the Colony boasted five private cars. Steam power was, however, used at sea before it was employed on land, and by 1876 there were nine steam launches operating in the harbour, and the first regular cross-harbour ferry, employing steam launches, commenced in 1880. In 1898, the Star Ferry was incorporated and took over from Dorabjee Nowrojee the previous ferry owner.\n\nBritish firms were, nonetheless, involved with transport, and a proposal was made by Jardine's, in 1881, for a system of trams on Hong Kong Island. The same year another proposal was made for a tramway to Victoria Gap, and in 1885 the original promoters sold their rights to Phineas Ryrie and Alexander Findlay Smith (Findlay Path on the Peak is named after him) for $2,000. The latter, a merchant who arrived in Hong Kong in the 1860s and who had been an employee of Scotland's Highland Railway, was the driving force. In 1881, it was he who requested approval from Sir John Pope-Hennessy, for this innovative scheme.\n\nAccording to Mrs Maud Grant-Smith, the Governor told her late husband's uncle, Findlay Smith:\n\n\"My dear chap, you are simply throwing your money down the drain. Do you imagine anyone wants to go to the top of the Peak?\"\n\nBecause His Excellency would not help, Smith brought his own engineers from Scotland. As early as the 1840s Doctor William Morrison, the Colonial Surgeon (1847 to 1859), recommended spending the summer on the Peak. He also suggested a sanatorium be built there to alleviate the effects of heat and humidity. This was constructed but by 1868 it had fallen into disrepair, and had been rebuilt as", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212333, "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": 275, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "252\n\n'Mountain Lodge', the Governor's summer residence. Smith was convinced the Peak Tram had a future.\n\nThe original promoters included F.B. Johnson of Britain, F.D. Sassoon of Hong Kong, C.V. Smith of Shanghai, and W.K. Hughes of Hong Kong. Capital for the new company amounted to $125,000 in $100 shares. Construction began in September 1885, when 30 to 40 families customarily spent their summers on the Peak. The Peak Hotel was opened in 1873.\n\nThe Peak Tram consulting committee included Phineas Ryrie, Findlay Smith, A. McIver, J.B. Coughtrie, and McEwen and Company. The project was completed and opened on 30th May 1888. The original tram had 30 seats, the front two of which were reserved for the Governor until two minutes before departure. The steepest gradient is one in two, at May Road, and the original steam engines were not replaced by an electrically powered system until 1926. The ten-minute journey on the cable car provided the only mechanical form of transportation to the 1305-foot high Victoria Gap until Stubbs Road was completed in 1924.\n\nIn 1905, the original firm was sold to the newly-incorporated Peak Tramways Company which included entrepreneurs such as Sir Paul Chater, H.N. Mody (Mody Road is named after this Parsee merchant), Abraham Jacob Raymond, Charles Wedderburn Dixon, and Creasy Ewens. The Kadoorie family has been connected with the Tramway since 1905.\n\nTrams and trains\n\nIn spite of the original 1883 Ordinance, mentioned above, the tramway scheme along the North shore of Hong Kong Island was delayed. It finally opened in 1904. In those early years, trams were a prestige form of travel.\n\nSimilarly, although Jardine's and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank formed a company in 1898, which was granted rights to build a railway from Kowloon to Canton, construction did not begin until 1906 and was undertaken, in the event, by Government. The British section was completed in 1910. By October 1911, the railway opened for through traffic to Canton.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212336, "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": 278, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "255\n\nThe Hong Kong Guide 1893 (republished 1982)\n\nHughes, Richard, Borrowed Place Borrowed Time, Hong Kong and its Many Faces\n\n(London 1968, reprinted 1976)\n\nHunter, W.C., The \"Fan Kwac\" at Canton Before Treaty Days 1825-1844 (republished 1965)\n\nHutcheon, Robin, The Blue Flame, 125 Years of Town Gas in Hong Kong (1987) Hutcheon, Robin, Wharf. The First Hundred Years, 1886-1986 (1986)\n\nIngrams, Harold, Hong Kong (London, 1952)\n\nJardine, Matheson & Company... an historical sketch (undated)\n\nJarrell, Old Hong Kong\n\nJones, Stephanie, Two Centuries of Overseas Trading. The Origins and Growth of the Inchcape Group) (England, 1986)\n\nKing, Frank H.H., The History of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, vols. I to IV\n\nLawrence, Anthony, and Frederick Amentrout, The Taipan Traders\n\nLiu Kwang-ching, Anglo-American Steamship Rivalry in China 1862-1874 (Harvard 1962) Luff, John, Hong Kong Cavalcade (1968)\n\nLuff, John, The Hidden Years, Hong Kong 1947-1945 (1967)\n\nLuff, John, The Hong Kong Story (circa late 1960s) MacMillan, Alistair, Seaports of the Far East (1925)\n\nMorris, Jan, Hong Kong, Xianggang (England, 1988) Murray, Simon, Legionnaire (England, 1980)\n\nPeak Tramway. 1888–1988\n\nPresent Day Impressions of the Far East and Prominent and Progressive Chinese at Home and Abroad, Managing Director W.H. Morton-Cameron, Editor-in Chief W. Feldwick (1917)\n\nRoyal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, journals, various\n\nThe Thistle and the Jade. A Celebration of 150 Years of Jardine. Matheson & Co. Editor Maggie Keswick (London, 1982)\n\nTwentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong. Shanghai, and Other Treaty Ports of China, Editor in Chief Arnold Wright (1908)\n\nWong Siu-lun, Emigrant Entrepreneurs: Shanghai Industrialists In Hong Kong (1988)\n\nUNPUBLISHED BOOKS\n\nBook 1, The Canton Dispensary 1828-1838 Book II, The Hong Kong Dispensary 1841-1862 Book III, A.S. Watson and Company 1862-1886\n\nCOMPANY BROCHURES, LEAFLETS AND MAGAZINES\n\nA.S. Watson & Co., Limited\n\nBrief History: The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation\n\nChina Light and Power Co. Ltd. (annual reports)\n\nDeacon's\n\nThe Elements of Power, China Light & Power\n\nHistory of Hong Kong & China Gas Co. Ltd\n\nHong Kong Bank Group Magazines\n\nHong Kong Land 1889/1989\n\nHong Kong's Noonday Gun (Jardine)\n\nHutchison Whampoa Limited (annual reports)\n\nInchcape: The International Services and Marketing Group A Pictorial History of Hong Kong Electric Standard Chartered News", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214058, "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": 126, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "93\n\nRailways\n\nThe first railway to be built was the Peak tramway, a 1.4km-long 1.5m-gauge steam-driven funicular railway rising 370 metres along steep rugged terrain, which was opened in 1888. A contemporary description stated that “A splendid feat of engineering skill has made the Peak accessible to all.” Nevertheless, during the following year, as a result of exceptionally heavy rainfall, the track was breached by a major landslide, a debris flow originating from a fill slope on the Peak. A few years later, in 1904, a conventional electric tram service was implemented along the northern side of the Island between Shau Kei Wan and Kennedy Town. Both of these are still running today. Railway track, with locomotives, trucks, and steam-operated cranes, were widely used around the turn of the century for transporting/handling freight in the dockyards and site construction materials.\n\nIn 1905, the Government took over a part of the concession to build a section of the Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR), namely that between Kowloon and the Chinese border. The 34km-long railway, which was completed in 1910, involved construction of five tunnels, 48 bridges (the largest span being 30.53 metres on an irregular skew over-bridge at Hung Hom), 66 culverts, workshops, and stations, drainage channels, and a little roadwork, the creation of a 16ha reclamation in Kowloon (in Tsim Sha Tsui and Hung Hom bays), and many cuttings and end-tipped embankments, including those along the exposed seaward sections between Sha Tin and Tai Po. In all, some 2.6M cubic metres of materials were handled in the earthworks. A contemporary technical discussion indicated that slopes of 1:1 were generally adopted in cuttings on which \"turf grew excellently....... Good results were obtained by plastering bad decomposed rock faces with a mixture of lime, sand, and gritty red earth\". Labour guilds kept the rates of wages relatively high (those for the building trades and for dressed granite even approaching those in England) and regulated the quantity of work to be undertaken by the various classes of workmen.\n\nThe 2.2km-long, 5.2m-wide horseshoe-shaped brick-lined Beacon Hill tunnel, which at the time was longer than any in China itself, was ranked as one of the outstanding engineering achievements of its day. To gain access to the south face, it was necessary to build a temporary 3km-long metre-gauge railway from the nearest jetty at Tai Kok Tsui,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214087, "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": 155, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "Peak Tramway soon after completion, c1890 HK Museum of History, Provisional Urban Council\n\n123", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 } ]