Guest author Klaus Liphard describes how the boundary between the New Territories and China was created in the 1890s.

Introduction

At the end of the 19th century, the Chinese Qing Empire was weak. This was utilized by foreign powers - France, Germany, Russia, and also Great Britain - to force China to lease territories to them.

Britain forced China into The Convention Between Great Britain and China Respecting an Extension of Hong Kong Territory, also known as the Second Convention of Peking, which leased the New Territories to Britain for 99 years. The Convention was signed on 9 June 1898 in Peking (Beijing) and became effective on July 1^st, 1898. This short convention (the English text is only one and a half pages) included a map showing the new boundary.

Map of Hong Kong in The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory
in 1898, by Klaus

This map had a small scale only. The eastern end of the boundary on land was at Starling Inlet (Mirs Bay), and the western one at Deep Bay. Between these two end points, a straight line was drawn. The exact course of the boundary had to be negotiated by <Read more ...>

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

General

• On Monday 21 June, 錢佩卿 and Dan Ip will talk about Gwulo's website and photo books on RTHK's early-morning show, 清晨爽利. See their video below for a taste of what to expect... (email subscribers may need to visit the website to see the video)
  
   
• Roman Tam and the Four Steps
   
• Questions from readers:
   
  • Looking for information on the Royal Artillery in Hong Kong in the 1860s and 1870s
     
• Answers to previous questions:
   
  • Memories of the 'Hong Kong' British Passport
    

    British Passport-Hong Kong-cover.jpg, by IDJ
     
    

    British Passport-Hong Kong-inside pages, by IDJ
    
     
  • Adding to last week's 1890s View from the Peak, Moddsey has pinned down when the Mount Austin Hotel was extended, and GW has identified the mystery building.
     
  • Several readers are having another go at locating the 1950s photo of the girl on the springboard

Places

• Hong Kong
   
  • Ballindae [c.1890-c.1940]
     
  • Barker Road [1898- ]
     
  • Memories of Belcher's Gardens
    

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

General

• Rachel would like to ask you a few questions about Gwulo...
  Local MSc student Rachel Lam is looking at 'the information needs and information behaviours of online community archives' users, using Gwulo as a reference point'. Click to view Rachel's questionnaire. [UPDATE: Rachel has found that "when opening the questionnaire in certain devices, the instructions and the option 'Other' on the Google Form appear in Chinese characters though everything else including the questions are still in English." If this happens to you, please contact Rachel by email so she can send you a Word file of the questionnaire: h1251959@connect.hku.hk]
   
• Can you write a Gwulo newsletter?
  The upgrade to the website will take more work than I expected, so I'm asking for your help. I've got next week's newsletter just about ready, but after that I'd welcome your contributed newsletters to free up my time for the upgrade. Last week's newsletter from Gordon is a good example of the format - interesting text and a selection of photos always work well. New articles or an extract from a book you've already written / are writing are all welcome. If you can help, please contact me: david@gwulo.com
   
• A new book, My Beautiful Island, is Chris Potter's mother's memoir of expat life in Hong Kong before and during the war years, 1938-45.
   
• Questions from readers:
   
  • Could a British citizen traveling to Hong Kong before 1997 have his passport renewed there?
     
  • Looking for a Portuguese family living on Ho Man Tin Street in the 1960s - trying to get re-connected with childhood Portuguese friends, siblings Tom, Marilyn, David and Mary.
     
  • If you went to KGV School in 1960, can you identify any of the young ladies in this school photo?
     
• Answers to previous questions:
   
  • A list of memoirs written during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong
     
  • Paul visited the pillars of the old inverted siphons at Pokfulam, and spotted something important that I'd missed. 
     
  • More comments about "Chinese escaping to mainland China in 1942"

Places

• The 1895 Public Works Department Annual Report gives details of government buildings worked on during the year.
   
• James continues to document the military lots of land around Hong Kong, adding old documents, and modern photos of surviving boundary stones he's found: <Read more ...>

In April 1972, Gordon Andreassend was sitting in his office in Murray Building when Hal Empson, the Cartographer strode in. “We’ve got a problem with the process camera” he said.

“Everything’s arrived, hasn’t it, what’s the problem?” was Gordon’s reply. 

It appeared there seemed no way to get the solid metal base of the camera, weighing about one ton, and 20 foot in length, into its allocated space on top of the building. It was too big for any lift, and too heavy to manhandle up the stairs to the 25th floor. 

Murray Building had been completed in 1970, and was the HQ and home to several offices of the Public Works Department (PWD). There was no <Read more ...>