RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299
248

were still in darkness. Kowloon had to wait another 28 years before gas lights were turned on. The inhabitants there continued to depend upon candles and oil lamps.

The board of directors set up their office in London, and from there they engaged staff and ran the company. The first manager in Hong Kong was R.C. Whitty. It was he who erected the plant, which came from Britain, on the waterfront at West Point (near Whitty Street). It was the first gas utility in the Far East. Jardine's office, the Hong Kong Dispensary (A.S. Watson and Company), and the Hong Kong Hotel were the first buildings to be lighted by gas. Gas cookers and water heaters were still unheard of.

The first plant could manufacture 120,000 cubic feet of gas a day, and for 80 years coal was used as fuel. The Ma Tau Kok gasworks used to ring a brass bell at hourly intervals, like ships of old using the marine system of two, four, six, and eight bells over a four-hour period, for timing the charging and discharging of furnaces. This bell was a familiar sound to Ma Tau Kok residents.

For 90 years the company was managed directly from Britain. Then, in 1954, majority control was purchased by George Marden of Wheelock Marden. In 1982, the transfer of the company's corporate registration from England to Hong Kong made it a local firm. These moves brought about more effective management control.

For 100 years there were gas lights in Hong Kong. Today only four remain. These are situated at the head and foot of the broad granite steps, built between 1875 and 1889, which lead from Ice House Street into Duddell Street in Central. The lamps were installed at the turn of the century when they were lit manually. These steps and the four street lights have been gazetted as historical monuments. Once there were over 2,000 street gas lamps. But in spite of the loss of business, the Gas Company learned to adapt and emerged stronger than ever. In the late 1980s, it had over half a million consumers. After 1981, Towngas has been produced entirely from eight naphtha plants.

Hong Kong Electric

The first power station in Hong Kong was in Star Street, Wanchai,
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g
196

Cambridge History of China, edited by Denis Twitchett et al, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978+

Campbell, Charles S. Special Business Interests and the Open Door Policy, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951

Carlson, Evans Fordyce. Twin Stars of China, the Behind the Scenes Story of China's Valiant Struggle for Existence by a US Marine Who Lived and Moved with the People, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1940

Carr, Henry. Riding the Tiger: An American Newspaper Man in the Orient, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1934

Chang, Sul-jeung. The Jews in Kaifeng. Reflections on Sino-Judaic History, Monographs of the Jewish Historical Society of Hong Kong, vol. II, Hong Kong: Jewish Chronicle, 1986.

Chardin, Pacifique Marie. Les Missions Franciscaines en Chine, Paris: Auguste Picard, 1915

Ch'en, Yuan. Western and Central Asians in China Under the Mongols, translated from the Chinese and annotated by Ch'en Hsing-hai and L. Carrington Goodrich, Los Angeles: Monumenta Serica, 1966

Chester, Ruth (Professor of Chemistry and Associate Dean of Ginling College), 'Women in Wartime China', broadcast May 1941 from Chengtu, in United China Relief Series Inc.

Chesterton, Ada Elizabeth (Jones). Young China and New Japan, Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1933

China in the Sixteenth Century, the Journal of Matthew Ricci 1583-1610 translated by Louis J. Gallagher, SJ, New York: Random House, 1953

China Miscellany, pamphlets and reprints, Shanghai and Hong Kong, 1864-1948

Chinese Repository, Macao and Canton, 1832-1851

Chinese Travellers, the. Containing a Geographical, Commercial and Political History of China, etc. collected from Du Halde, Le Comte, and other modern travellers, second edition, London: printed for E. and C. Dilly, 1772

Chitty, J.R. Things Seen in China, London: Seeley, Service, 1912

Christmas, Margaret C.S. Adventurous Pursuits: Americans and the China Trade 1784-1844, Washington, DC: National Gallery, 1984

Clark, Robert Sterling and Arthur de C. Sowerby. Through Shen-Kan: The Account of the Clark Expedition in Northern China, London: T.F. Unwin, 1912
================================================================================