RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572
323

Certificate. But seeing you have come a long way we will set papers on 5 subjects as a test. If you pass our examination we will admit you." Ngan Chun On told us he got 100% marks on all 5 subjects which shocked his American examiners. This ancient episode tallies with what both Dr. Joyce Symons, recently retired headmistress of the Diocesan Girls' School, and the Rev. George Zimmern of the D.B.S., used to tell me, on separate occasions, that our Hong Kong students have always been able to be trusted to perform well when competing abroad. This reflects credit on the schools provided by the Church of England, as well as on all other schools in Hong Kong, and on this note my note may best end.

NOTES

1 The author, Mr W.J. Howard was born in 1903, and studied at Diocesan Boys' School between 1911 and 1919, leaving the school as a Prefect. He has lived most of his life in Hong Kong, and is a keen member of the Society. At Plate 1 is a photograph of the Prefects of Diocesan Boys' School in Mr Howard's final year at the school. The original inscription on this photograph reads:

"Diocesan Boys' School, Bonham Road, Hong Kong, Prefects 1918/19.

Left to Right Back Row:

Middle Row:

Front Row:

Charles Mackenzie, Kenneth Tyson, James A. Kent

Harvey W. Knight, John L. Litton, James Howell, William J. Howard [author]

Kor Bu Lok (Head Prefect), Rev. W.T. Featherstone M.A. Oxon. (Headmaster), Charles F.G. Jackson.”
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641
64

District, however, the total recorded urban population of males is far smaller than the recorded numbers of men in "urban" occupations. Clearly, many men traditionally went home to their native villages to sleep who worked by day in the Northern District towns and, probably, many craftsmen worked at home in their native villages, only occasionally going to sell their wares in the towns. This suggestion, of a more intimate and closely integrated urban/rural society in Northern, and a more thoroughly urban society in Southern, is likely to be correct. By day, the Northern towns may well have been twice as large as the figure given in the census, but, even if this is so, the difference between the tiny market-villages in northern District and the genuine towns in Southern remains stark.

The high number (376 in 1911, 378 in 1921) of masons and allied trades in Northern District, is to be explained, in part, by the construction of the roads, and the other public works projects the Government had begun after taking over the New Territories, but even more by the very large quarry at Lung Kwu Tan, which, as is made clear in the Village Population Table in the 1911 Census, employed 215 stonecutters and others. In Southern District there were 766 males working as masons or in associated trades in 1911 (6.9% of all males with recorded trade), and there were 989 in 1921 (the 1911 and 1921 figures for Southern District both including New Kowloon); in both 1911 and 1921 these people were mostly working in the large quarries at Chek Lap Kok off Lantau, and in the “stone hills” in New Kowloon, as well as in private and public construction projects. Stonecutters clearly tended to live apart from their families at the quarries where they worked. In 1911 in "Lung Kwu Tan Quarry”, 215 males were recorded, but no females, and in Southern the quarries at Chek Lap Kok and at the "stone hills” in Kwun Tong stand out. Chek Lap Kok had 55 males recorded, with only 22 females, while Ngau Tau Kok, Sai Cho Wan, Lei Yue Mun and Cha Kwo Ling - the villages of the "stone hills" - had 625 males between them, but only 339 females. The Quarry Bay villages of Hong Kong Island, and the Shek Shan village in Kowloon, are other cases in point.

The censuses are unrevealing on the other known village industries. Up to 1917 there was a major pottery at Wun Yiu near Tai Po, and incense mills at several places, especially Tsuen Wan: none of the workers in these trades are specifically recorded either in 1911 or in 1921, unless under the “general labourer" category. However, the lime
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