1933-34: Photos from Warren Swire's sixth visit to Hong Kong
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It's three years to the day since I last wrote about Warren Swire's photos, so we're long overdue for another instalment. This batch of photos come from his visit to Hong Kong in 1933-34. He was keeping to his usual schedule of a visit every 4-5 years, having last visited in 1928-29, and was also keeping to his usual themes for the photos he took.
Industry at Quarry Bay
The Taikoo dockyard and sugar refinery always get a photo or two. This first photo, marked "Ship repairs" actually shows a submarine being worked on. I've seen photos of submarines in Hong Kong's dry docks before, but this is the first time I've seen one pulled up onto a slipway. The cable that pulls a vessel up the slipway and out of the water is shown running across the photo from the large winch on the right.
The second photo shows two ships on the slipway, and the cable wound up around the winch.
Next are two photos showing the Taikoo sugar refinery, and the western end of the dockyard.
He took both photos from the same spot, so we can combine them into a single panorama:
Hillside views
From higher up the hills above Taikoo, he took this photo looking out over Aldrich Bay / Shau Kei Wan, towards Lei Yue Mun and the eastern entrance to Hong Kong's harbour.
I'm not so sure where he was standing for this one though. There's Lion Rock in the centre, and the light coloured line across the hillside on the left is likely the big catchwater that flows into Kowloon Reservoir, so maybe we're looking from somewhere around Needle Hill?
Houses
27 Lugard Road was a new acquisition since Warren's previous visit - Taikoo Dockyard had bought the building in 1930.
The next photo is titled "Shek O bungalow". A Google search shows that Swire still appear to own a building with that name. Do readers know if it is the same building shown in this photo, or a later re-development?
The original title for this photo was "House being built", but I recognise it as Woodside, company housing on the hillside above Taikoo. On the page for that building we note it was finished back in 1924, so I believe the scaffolding in this photo was just put up for some maintenance work.
The last house in this group is anonymous, and isn't one I recognise.
A second photo, looking at the house from the opposite direction, shows it overlooked paddy fields, so was likely somewhere in the New Territories. Can anyone identify it? If it follows the other photos in this section, perhaps this house was also owned by one of Swire's companies?
Shipping
This formed a large part of Swire's business, and so is another regular subject of Warren's attention. Several of Gwulo's readers are very knowledgeable about the history of Hong Kong shipping, so hopefully they'll leave a comment below if they spot anything of interest in these scenes.
Further reading:
- Click the following links to view photos from Warren Swire’s previous visits to Hong Kong: 1906-7, 1911-12, 1919-20, 1923-24, and 1928-29.
- These photos all come from the Historical Photographs of China website. If you're interested in mainland China in the first half of the twentieth century, you'll want to take a look at the broader G. Warren Swire Collection. e.g. during his 1933-34 visit, Warren also took photos in Amoy, Autung, Bangkok, Canton, Chefoo, Chungking, Hankow, Ichang, Nanking, Peking, Swatow, Tientsin, and the Yangtze Gorges!
