ENG-1962 — Page 22

REVIEW

7

Peninsula. The first Peninsular and Oriental vessel to call regularly at Hong Kong was the Lady Mary Wood which arrived in 1845 on the company's so-called 'China extension'. During the same period the P&O established an office on the waterfront in the Western district of Victoria.

To take part in the commercial development of Hong Kong, the P&O sent out their 400-ton steamer Canton three years later to operate between Canton, Macau and Hong Kong, thus establish- ing a feeder service for their vessels on the United Kingdom run. The Canton proved very popular with merchant houses in the Colony since she was well-armed and could repel the pirates who infested the nearby islands. The P&O were also one of the pioneers on the China coast, establishing a regular run between Hong Kong and Shanghai in 1849 by the Lady Mary Wood. The service was unique in being undertaken without a Government mail contract, which in those days was normally an accepted pre-requisite for the opening of a new steamship service.

Messrs Jardine, Matheson and Company, under the chairman- ship of Mr James Matheson, also pioneered many early shipping services between Hong Kong and India, using both sailing and steam vessels. Jardines' ships were noted for their speed and it was not unusual for them to reach Hong Kong before the mail ship, thereby permitting the company's taipans to get advance information on the world situation and the state of the markets. In order to obtain even speedier delivery of their despatches Jardines established a lookout station on a hill behind Causeway Bay and as soon as one of their vessels was sighted a fast whale- boat would be sent out to Kowloon Bay to intercept it. The hill is still known as Jardines Lookout.

Compulsory registration of British ships dates from the Naviga- tion Acts of 1660, and in 1855 the Hong Kong Government pro- mulgated an ordinance establishing a proper system of registration for local vessels. The first vessel to be registered was the lorcha Rapid, of 66 tons, which was owned by a Mr Cheung Hoong of Victoria. To be registered under the ordinance the owner of a vessel had to comply with only one requirement, namely that he was the lessee of land in the Colony; he did not have to be a British subject or a body corporate under the laws of the Colony,