Clik here to view.
1920s View down the Peak Tram line
Who: There are a couple of people to mention this week. Here's a clue for the first one:Mr Belilios was a successful businessman in Hong Kong, and for nine proud years the owner of Hong Kong's only...
View ArticleClik here to view.
1. The fire
Book / Document: The Happy Valley Racecourse Fire DisasterThis guest post is written by David Twynham. Please click here for the background to this post.Introduction On 26 February 1918, just after the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
c.1902 Shau Kei Wan
When: The date, 1902, is printed on the photo's mounting card.Where: The card is titled "Looking east over the bay and fishing village of Shaukiwan, China". An 1895 map of this area [1] shows the bay...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Early photos of Mid-levels
Thank you to Martyn Gregory for sharing these old photos of Mid-levels with us. They were taken in the late 1800s.You can click on any photo to visit its page. There you can zoom in to see more detail,...
View ArticleChow Sing
Book / Document: Mary Unsworth's memoirs of life in Hong KongDate(s) of events described: Sun, 1 Jan 1893 to Tue, 31 Dec 1895In the second of Mary Unsworth's memoirs, she tells us about Chow Sing, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
1920s At the harbour's edge
When: None of the men show any sign of wearing their hair in the braided queue, so the photo was taken later than 1911.There's a man on the right who may help us:He's moving too quickly to see him very...
View ArticleClik here to view.
1930s Sheung Wan
Where: The title of the photo is "Queen's Road". They don't say if it is the East, West, or Central section, so that's a lot of road to think about. Fortunately, one of Queen's Road's quirks is its...
View ArticleAh Hop
Book / Document: Mary Unsworth's memoirs of life in Hong KongDate(s) of events described: Sun, 1 Jan 1899In the third and last of Mary Unsworth's memoirs, she tells us the sad story of Ah Hop, a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In the stoke-hole of H.M.S. Terrible. Hong Kong, China. 1902.
Where: As the title says, we're inside the "stoke-hole"* in the Royal Navy's HMS Terrible, a Powerful class of protected cruiser [1]. The men are feeding coal to the fire that heats the boilers,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A visit to Aladdin's Cave
Here are a few gems from a recent visit to Roy Delbyck's collection of ephemera.Guide-booksOriginally meant to be used and thrown away, these old tourist guides are now a valuable snapshot of old Hong...
View ArticleClik here to view.
c.1928 Houses on a hill
Where: Any ideas? There's a sign where the path splits left and right, but it is too far away to read. And though I don't recognise the location this is the highest land in the neighborhood, so maybe...
View ArticleG. Vincent BROOM [????-????]
Given: G. VincentFamily: BroomSex: MaleStatus: DeceasedFrom an audio tape by L T Ride:‘A New Zealand engineer off a Hongkong-owned ship, probably chartered on war work when the Japs attacked Hongkong,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
1930s Sheung Wan
Where: The title of the photo is "Queen's Road". They don't say if it is the East, West, or Central section, so that's a lot of road to think about. Fortunately, one of Queen's Road's quirks is its...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Early photos of Hong Kong people
Thank you to Martyn Gregory for sharing these old photos of Hong Kong people with us. They date from the late 1800s to the early 1900s.You can click on any photo to visit its page. There you can zoom...
View ArticleThe Jurors List for 1941
As I've just posted the 1941 Jurors List online, now's a good chance to talk about using the Jurors Lists for research. This list is also a bit different as I've used OCR (optical character...
View ArticleClik here to view.
1954 Summer holidays - arriving home on BOAC
Thanks to Ron Rakusen for sending this photo. He writes:I started at Boarding School in the UK in April 1952 and next saw my parents in HK when I flew there for the summer holidays in 1954. It being my...
View ArticleAugust 1945: The end is in sight
Seventy years ago, our wartime diarists knew the end of the war was in sight. Would they live to see it?The good newsThey had two good reasons to believe the end of the war was coming. First there was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
1960s: Views along the tram line
Join us for a tram ride eastwards across Hong Kong island. You can click any of the photos below to see other readers' comments, and / or leave your own.1960s Hong Kong1960s #72 Des Voeux Road Central,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
August 1945 / August 2015: Is it really true?
70 years separates these two accounts, both written by Barbara Anslow. Barbara wrote the first one in Stanley Camp not long after the Japanese surrender. She says:You will see that 'Is it really true'...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sailing Junks around Hong Kong
This email arrived on Monday:... we are looking for any arresting photo that one might want to frame and hang on a wall of a junk with or without the city in background that could be printed vertically...
View Article