1941-01-25 — Page 14

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, CENTENARY SUPPLEMENT

SHEWAN TOMES & CO.,LTD

旗

洋

行

TEL. ADDRESS: KEECHONG

BANK OF EAST ASIA BLDG.

HONG KONG. TEL. 27701

IMPORT, EXPORT & COMMISSION AGENTS.

General Managers of:-

The Hongkong Rope Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

The Sandakan Light & Power Co. (1922) Ltd.

General Agents for:-

China Underwriters, Ltd.

Agents for:

A. C. Lawrence Leather Co. (Leather)

The Hercules Powder Co. (Explosives & Chemicals!

SHAMEEN, CANTON.

The Chinese Aluminium Rolling Mills, Ltd. (Aluminium Sheets & Foll) Aluminium Union Limited, (Aluminium Products)

Cost Borneo Maatschappij, N.V. (Samarinda Dyak Coal)

Mitchell Corts & Co., Ltd. (Natal Navigation Group Lump Coal! "Italit" Products, Ltd. (Asbestos Cement Sheets)

The Celotex Corporation (Celotex Fibre Board)

Certain-teed Products Corporation (Roofing Products, Linoleum)

The Sisalkraft Co. (Waterproofed Paper)

Singapore Rubber Works Ltd. (Tiles & All Rubber Manufactures) Schlage Lock Company (Locks)

Union Oil Co. of California (Oils. Asphalt, etc.),

McKesson & Robbins, Inc (Toilet Articles)

Bauer & Black (Hospital Supplies)

H. Kohnstamm & Co. Inc. (Pigment Colours & Flavouring Extracts) Century Electric Co. (Motors & Electrical Supplies)

Fairbanks Morse & Co. (Pumps, Electrical Plant, Small Gasoline Engines,

Scales, etc.)

Moffats, Ltd. (Electric Cookers, Refrigerators)

Veritys, Ltd. (A.C. and D.C. Motors, A.C. and D.C. Switch Gear, Fans,

Light Fittings, Radiators)

Wingets, Ltd. (Concrete Mixers)

Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Co. (Telephones)

Bruntons Musselburgh) Ltd. (Wire Rope)

Wonhams, Inc. (Railway Materials)

.H. Widdop & Co., Ltd. (Diesel Engines/

Record Electrical Co., Ltd. (Electrical Instruments, etc.)

Line Material Co. (Electrical Equipment for Overhead Lines) Atlas Steels, Ltd. (Tool & Special Steel)

Enfield Cable Works, Ltd. (Electrical Cables & Supplies)

Manufacturers of:--

Chain Link Wire Netting Square Crimped Wire Mesh

Steel Office Furniture

also

BUTTERFIELD & SWIRE

Hong Kong.

China

- Japan

BRANCHES:

Hankow

Tientsin

Chinkiang

Harbin

Kiukiang

Kobe

Chungking Dalny

Hong Kong Ichang

Nanking

Ningpo Shanghai Shaşi

Newchwang

Swatow

Tsingtao Wuhu

Yokohama

Amoy Canton Changsha Changtch

Chefoo

AGENTS FOR-

THE CHINA NAVIGATION CO., LTD. TAIKOO CHINESE NAVIGATION CO., LTD. THE BLUE FUNNEL LINE. AUSTRALIAN-ORIENTAL LINE, LTD.

THE TAIKOO SUGAR REFINING CO., LTD.

THE ORIENT PAINT COLOUR & Varnish co., LTD.

London & Lancashire Insurance Co., Ltd. Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation, Guardian Assurance Co., Ltd. Orient insurance Co.

Sea Insurance Co., Ltd.

British Traders Insurance Co., Ltd. British & Foreign Marine Insurance Co., Ltd. Standard Marine Insurance Co., Ltd.

Confederation Life Association

THE TAIKOO DOCKYARD & ENGINEERING CO. OF HONGKONG, LTD.

PIRATES

ABOUNDED: AND

EUROPEAN

(Continued from Page Two)

ba replaced by the existing new struc ture two years ago. The first slaughter houses were erected in 1853.

The earliest Police buildings were the Magistracy and Victoria Gaol, and Police Stations at Queen's Road Easi and Aberdeen, built in 1847. All have been either demolished' or superseded rince then-Victoria Gaol was recon. structed in 1869, and superseded few years ago by the new prison. al Stanley, while the Magistracy stands to-day is a comparatively new structure. Perhaps the oldest of the existing Police Stations is the old No,

A

It

1 in Happy Valley, which a few years ago was converted into quarters for Indian constables, when the fine new Wanchal (No. 2) Station came kilo u180 on the Praya East Reclamation. It is on record that a Wongnelchong Police Station was erected a 1033, and the old No. D at Caine Road went up" the same year. The original Central Follee Station was bulk in 1857, and the old No. 7 Station (superseded in 1002) was erected in 1858. Several other outly- ing stations were built about this period. The okl Wanchał Station was built in 186B.

The Colony had its fair quota of Chinese criminals at that time, and in the early years a gang of pirates from the mainland actually landed near Wed Point and looted the Chinese section of the town. Raids by armed Chinese on European residences were also not Uncommon. But the records of the Supreme Court contain references to piracies of a more ambitious kind, such as thrilled most of us in the fiction of our-youth.

EUROPEAN PIRATES

JANUARY 25, 1941.

BOTH

CHINESE

WYNDHAM STREET 95 YEARS AGO

Wyndham Street in 1848, with old Hongkong Club on the right and Pedder's Ill on the left.

The Volunteers Come Into Being

that the professional Fire Brigade became a sub-department of the Police

administration,

It is strango to think nowadays of the trial in Hongkong in 1943 of Henry Daniel Sinclair, n Briton, former gunner of the schooner Ariel, an charge of piracy. He was sentenced to transportation fer life. In 1843, Cap- tain Cole of the schooner Spec and his crew were acquitted of a charge of piracy: but an Englishman noined Willam Fenton, who commanded a Chinese torcho, or junk, engaged in piracy, was sentenced to three years' bard labour in 1852, after a series of

THE VOLUNTEER · Conrs trials in which he had at first been

In referring to volunteers fighting l discharged,

many adventures, local fires, une Is reminded that the which included ʼn Oght in which Brilish civilian population gave other Portuguese naval officer was killed by evidence of their public spirit. In some of Fenton's Chinese crew. In forming the present Volunteer Defence 1857, an American with the truly Corps romantic name of El Bogg-in itself suggesting the pirate chiefs of the story books-was sentenced in Hongkong lo transportation for life, on a charge of piracy and murder. and, owing to health was sent back to Amerlen the following year.

Thero were inen who in the main led Chinese freebooters operating in local waters. The Chinese pirates, who at one time had counted flongkong Island a stronghold of their own, continued their trade for many years, and within living memory, before British control was extended on the mainland, Hong:- kong residents could journey out to Kowloon City foreshore (now abli teruled by the airport reclamation) and witness rows of pirates being executed by having their heads struck off with a nige sword.

It is evident that in the early days the Police Force had a great deal to cope with, and for some years there was a law that all Chinese abroad after dark should entry lanterns. Jardine Matheson and Company for a great many years employed their own watch- men at East Point, and also had their own cannon to protect their premises theref

It required the Crimean War, how- ever, when in Britain itself enthusiasm was at a high pitch, to create sumelent entininlasm locally, but the first sugges-1 tlan for local Volunteers did not develop until 1800. In March 1802, a pubile meeting in the old Court House decided to form à Volunteer Corps. A battery of artillery was first organised, and a band followed; In 1803 a rifle company came into being, and in 1804 the Volunteers had their first experi ence of street patrols following a smill riot in the Colony; which followed a Aght between European and Malay sailors, and in which British soldiers inter look port.

There were several slack periods, in which the Corps became moribund and was temporarily disbanded, but con

claimed tinuity of existence can be from 1803, when the Volunteers were

under properly constituted

military to the Volunteer control, similarly forces in the British Isles.

i

When hostilities with the Chinese

The Jockey Club also has an old his- tory, the race course having been con- broke out again not long after Hou kong had been ceded, owing to nuns structed in 1840, but prior to that, observance of the provisional treaty Rongkong sportsmen (from 1841 ta stipulations, some of these troops re-embarked for Canion, and took purt 1845) raced their ponies at Macao. in the punitivo operations

The oldest cemetery, used by the Ecclesiastical Institutions were early in military, was al Taipingshan, above the field; anil several schools were also Queen's Roast West, while the civillans opened in the very first year of the were buried at St Francis Yard, off British occupation. Let us consider Queen's Rond Fast Stanley cemetery

some of the older foundations. was opened a little later for the lil- lary, and the Colonial Cemetery in Happy Valley for civiliana (in 1845), The remains of those buried in si Francis

Yard were removed to the Colonial Cemetery in 1880.

Owing to the presence ot Indian soldiers here in the very early days, including a number of Mohammedang, the community was one of thase

almost specially catered for

at the outset, and not only was a mosque in existence at an early date (1843) but

Moslem cometory the

From the very first, religious bodies must have turned their eyes tu a new field of endeavour, and when the Colony had assumed some semblance of settled order, the earliest missions arrived. The Baptists were among the first here, and in 1842 a Baptist Chapel was opened in Queen's Road, primirily. intended, it would appear, for Chinese worshippers. Rev. J. L., Schuck opened the with money subscribed by also was

foreign community freskient And This iransient). The exnet locallon Among other early pioneers of non- British nationality, were Parsee mer- chanel is not. apparently, known to chants, whose connection with Hang- inv: it had gone out of use by the kong goes back to the first year of sixties, and the Baptists of the Colony occupation, and the Innd for their worshipped with the other noncon- cemelery at Happy Valley was granted | formists in the Union Church, of which in the Afties. There were soon a number of Jewish merchants establish- ed as well, and they were also granted a place for burials, on a knoll at the top of Happy Valley, still in use.

established.

BOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS LIFE But let us take the brighter side of the pioneer days, when social and sports clubs, churches, and schools were established. There is no space for a full description of these insiltu tions or details about all of them: it must suffice to mention briefly some of

But in the very first years of the British occupation, the military garri- son-with of enurse the control of the sens exercised by the Royal Navy-had entire responsibility for local defence, Military and naval establishments were constructed almost immediately the Island Wox occupied. Matshed It was in 1844, according to old barracks went up at what We now records, that Captain Italy. of the know as West Point, but here the men Madras Native Infantry (one of the suffered from fever and the absence Indian regiments garrisoning the island of proper sanitation; and they were the oldest, and best known, -in-the-early years) assisting Mrhoused in 1812 in new barracks bullt.

Charles May, a Police Inspector from London, organised the first properly constituted Police Force for Hongkong. consisting of 78 Europeans, 34 Indians and 48 Chinese; and a detective depart ment was created in 1848. The actual credit for creating the Hongkong Police probably goes to Mr May, whose full-ume job it became towards the end of 1844.

more anon. However, it is understood thai in 1844 there was ↑ Baptist Chanel Queen's Road, at the corner of Gough Street

ST JOHN'S CATHEDRAL

St John's Cathedral is the second oldest Christian edifice now standing. The oldest is the Chapel in the Pro- festant Cemetery, erected in 1845 The Anglican Church had na His Brst premises a matshed structure erected The oldest social institution is then 1843 on Murray Parade Ground, near -the north-east corner, and here the tirat of brick off Queen's Road, on the high; Hongkong Club, which was founded in

Colonial Chaplain. Rev. V. J. Stasion. ground known or Cantonment Hill, at the early years of the Colony. It was Stanley and ai Aberdeen. By 1843, opened on May 20. 1840. In a building opened his ministry. The building of Murray Barracks had been built, und which stood on the site of the present the Cathedral was commenced in 1847 Wellington Barracks followed; and with King's Theatre, at the bottom of and completed in 1848: the foundation the fortiileation of Lycemun, the old Wyndham Street. It must have formed stone was laid by Sir John Davis, barracks at Sulwan were erected. In

the main meeting place for the mer-

Bart, the Governor, on March 11, 1847, all these places, particularly out at chants, elvil servants and officers of

and the ediflce (the dealen of Me J. Salwan and at Aberdeen, what we now the defence forces, and probably the

Pope, a Government elvil engineer) know to have been malarla, resulted means of transaction of business, for

was opened to worshin on March 11. the Chamber of Commerce was not in the death of large numbers of the

troops.

founded until 1861. The Club moved

1840. Bishop George Smith (the first annointed to the Colony) arrived in Into Ita present building In July, 1897, Even the civilians, beiter able to take precautions against the climate and the premises being then newly erected 1850, and consecrated the Cathedral on September 10, 1852. In 1858 the cont on the partly completed reclamation. fever, were decimated. It was estimat- ed that In the late summer of 1843,

Of sports clubs, one of the oldest of the organ was raised by public no fewer than 24 per cent of the is the Royal Hongkong Yacht Club. subscription, Mr C. F. A. Sangster troops and 10 per cent, of the European which had its origin in the Victoria coming out in 1860 as organisi, and civilians died of fever. The old Regatta Club, which held it strat remaining here 35 years. The founda- cemetery at Stanley tells its own story meeting in October, 1849. This was Hon stone of the new Chancel was Inid of this toll--the names of women and principally a rowing club, and a yacht on November 18, 1800, by II. R. II. the children, members of families who{ club was not netually formed until the

Duke of Edinburgh. The Cathedral courageously followed their men out to

bells were donated in 1880 by the Hon. the new station, are included.

Mr F. Patry, Among the earliest troops were an Indian regiment: British units were the 49th Regiment, the 55th Regiment and the 98th Regiment of Foot, and the Prior to the organisation of a whole- isth Rayni Trish Regiment. The 48th time brigade of fre-6ghters, volunteer Foot are now the first battalion of the Bremen-members of the civilian popu- Royal Berkshire Regiment, the 55th Intion-were of great assistance. The Foot are now the second battalion of Insurance companies, however, were the Border Regiment, and the 58th are not satisfied unti a properly constituted the second battalion of the North Fire Brigade camo into being Volun- Staffordshire Regiment (Prince teer European and Chinese brigades Wales). They all have dragon were first formed in 1856, and they superscribed "China" in their badge. were reorganised in 1867, under The Royal Irish were disbanded with Superintendent, with policemen and the other Irish regiments after the civilians as personnel. It was in 1005 Great War.

From the earliest years, the city was;

some of visited by occasional fires, them of considerable and devastating proportions, and the fire-fighting ser» vlees were in the hands of policemen, with occasional assistance of soldiers; up to the beginning of this year (1941) the head of the Police Department also held the post of chief of the Fire Brigade, the connection between the two services having persisted after the Cre-fighters had been thoroughly re- organised in personnel and equipment. and had become a separate department. with stations throughout the Colony and their own superintendents.

of

end of 1800. The club house was opened at North Point in 1000, and the new building on Hellett Island has recently been occupied (1040),

It is the Victoria Recreation Club however, direct descendant of the Victoria Regatta Club, that can claim the oldest unbroken lilstory.

The Hongkong Cricket Club has a long and continuous history, being founded in June, 1851, and has used lis present ground ever since. This ground was then a waste plece of land alongside the sen, used as a milltary drit ground, and the area is still the actual property. ot the military authorities.

This drawing by Me M. Bruce; • a ́ Hongkong, architect, fw one of a series, att sketched in 1846, 'reproduced in this supplement. It shows Queen's Road and the harbour, looking wast from. Murray

· Ballery: (above. Battery Path);

A

Other Protestant denominations were also active in the forties, and Presbyterian place of worship was established by 1847 in a bungalow then situated off Wyndham Street the back of the original Hongkong Club, This bungalow occupied o site now covered by the northern wing of the Morning Post Building. Later, the Presbyterians worshipped in the Union Church.

It was in 1844 that the original Union Church was erected in Hong- kong, at Wellington Street, but in 1843 De James Legge hold the first Union Church meetings in his house. A new Union Church was erected in Staunton Street in 1003. In 1800 the corner stone of the present Union Church In Kennedy Road was Jald, and I was opened for services in 1801,

Brief mention is due to the former St Peter's Church at West Point, opened in 1872, and in use up to 1933, when is activities were transferred to Kowloon Tong and it was taken over as a shelter for street sleepers. It was a Church of England institution.

The Roman Catholles were also netivo. early in the Colony's history and their first Church was erected in 1842-43 in the lower part of Wellington Street, on land granted by Government, who had given the land for the Protestant places. of worship as well. In October, 1859 a huge Bre which swept over part of the city, burned down this Catholic Church, which was however rebuilt and, Incidentally, had acquired the status of a cathedral." It was found necessary to erect a new structure some years later, and the present. Catholle Cathedral in Caino Road came into being. In 1083 the foundalion `siona for a new Cathedral on the Caine Road Rite WRE lald. Bishop Raimondi omelating at the religious ceremonies, Bubsequently, alterations were made to. the building, and the spiro way entirely (Continued on Page Five)