A look at what's new on the Gwulo website...
 

General
 

• Readers are looking for information about:
   
  • A travel agency in the Peninsula Hotel whose proprietor was a lady surnamed Odner. Timeline 1950s+
     
  • What was the life of a soldier with the Royal Engineers in Hong Kong like in the late 1930s
     
  • Where was the "Block House, Victoria Peak" in 1860?
     
  • What are were these large stone & concrete structures in the old Diamond Hill Quarry used for?
     
  • The original Godown nightclub had a mural of the early Hong Kong waterfront. Was it painted by Douglas Bland?

Places
 

• Hong Kong
   
  • Can anyone identify the house at the left of this photo?
    

    Help with locating this area in Hong Kong, by william00179
    
     
• Kowloon
   
  • Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb & Museum [????- ]
    

    Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb crypt 1, by tkjho
    
     
  • Sam Shan Kwok Wong Temple, Ngau Chi Wan [????- ]
     
  • SKH St Thomas' Church [????- ]
     
  • St. Thomas Primary School (original location) [1952- ]
     
  • Three buildings completed in 1928: <Read more ...>

Guest author Geoffrey Charles Emerson unearths the history of a small, silver trowel:

In January 2021, I received an email from Michael Stewart in England. Michael is the son of former St Paul’s Headmaster (1930 – 1958) Evan G. Stewart. Michael was born in Hong Kong in 1931, so 90 this year, and he is now retired in southern England near to his two daughters, Frances and Isobel. Ever since 2008, when Michael visited Hong Kong for Speech Day and for the Stewart Dinner in the school hall, in honour of Michael’s father and his father’s older brother, Michael’s uncle, Rev. A.D. Stewart, Headmaster of St Paul’s before E.G., Michael and I have kept up an active correspondence.

Michael wrote to me because recently he and his daughters have been going through family records and mementos, and they were puzzled by a silver trowel with a Chinese inscription on it, but no English. Longman’s dictionary defines a trowel as “a tool with a flat blade for spreading cement”, and trowels are often used for laying foundation stones. They are usually presented as a souvenir to the person, always a VIP, laying the stone. Michael sent me a photo and asked if I could provide a translation of the Chinese.

A friend of mine, Sylvia Fok Midgett, was happy to assist, and not only did she provide a good translation, but she also found <Read more ...>

A look at what's new on the Gwulo website...
 

General

• Isabella Bird's book The Golden Chersonese includes several of her letters describing the Hong Kong she saw in the 1870s. Copies are available to read online at no charge.
   
• Readers are looking for information about:
   
  • Any lesser known artists - perhaps 19th or early 20th century - that have produced Hong Kong related work.
     
  • Alfredo Alvares's 1956 Jaguar XK140
     
• Answers to previous questions:
   
  • Readers' comments on Hong Kong apartments and travelling from Canton to Hong Kong in the early 1960s.
     
  • The range of possible dates for the recent '1890s View from the Peak' photo has been narrowed down to 1891-1893.
     
  • More memories from KGV in the 1960s
     
  • The tower at Kowloon Hospital is confirmed to be for typhoon signals
     
  • This photo's location now identified as Tung Lo Wan Road, Causeway Bay:
    

    Four-story building under construction, designed by V. N. Dronnikoff, by V. N. Dronnikoff

 Places

• Hong Kong <Read more ...>

As we head into the typhoon season, guest author Peter Kelly remembers the troubles they caused him in 1964, when he was in Hong Kong as a telecoms engineer with the army:

Our busiest time was during the typhoon season. This occurred every year with some years being spectacularly damaging. I had one of those years, with cables being uprooted by anchor chains and mass flooding of many of our manholes.

The warnings would start at number one or two and slowly climb to ten.

1950s Storm Warning Signal Card by Andrew Suddaby

By about six all movement outside had been banned and the city hunkered down to sit out the storm. The wind was hurricane force and the rain torrential. One night we were all turfed out of our beds to <Read more ...>

A look at what's new on the Gwulo website...
 

General

• Readers are looking for information about:
   
  • Hong Kong apartments and travelling from Canton to Hong Kong in the early 1960s.
     
  • The Hong Kong Police Orchestra or Band, pre-WW2
     
  • An organisation with the initials S T I that was in operation immediately after WW2
     
  • When Interocean House on Java Road was built, the company, Royal Interocean Lines, had a special safe built into the wall of the building which contained: various papers of the company, schedules, employee lists and the house magazine called RIL Post. Does anyone know what happened to that safe after the building was demolished?
     
• Answers to previous questions:
   
  • In the comments to last week's newsletter, The Anglo-Chinese Boundary 1898, there's discussion about whether the border or the village moved at Sha Tau Kok. Klaus has also added more information about the boundary's first marker and the boundary Stones along Chung-Ying Street.
     
  • After lengthy discussions about the location of the 1950s photo of the girl on the springboard, we were surprised to learn it was taken on Lantau at a villa known as Yick Yuen (奕園), and that the villa and its swimming pool still exist today

Book offer, and Gwulo in the press

• My Book One are offering 15% off English-language books, including all four of Gwulo's books. Offer ends on 11 July.
   
• Last week, Dan Ip took listeners to RTHK's 清晨爽利 on a guided trip through the hidden details in two of my photos - one each from my first and second books. The recording is now online, and starts at 05:40 in Part 2.
  

  Photo 1: 1923 Crashed trams on Arsenal Street
    <Read more ...>