Everything tagged "Hong"

Philip Harding Klimanek (1883-1965) was born in the Czech Republic, at the time his place of birth was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In ca. 1905 he started to work for Holland-China Trading Company, in Hong Kong.

In 1939, when Charles Gesner van der Voort arrived in Shanghai to work for the company, he was Charles' senior manager. In a letter home he wrote: "Played chess with Klimanek in the French Club" [translation Pieter Lommerse, the French Club was Le Cercle Sportif Français, a fashionable place to be in the 1930s and it still exists today]. <Read more ...>

Newspaper article about Reginald Harding-Klimanek ('Reggie') by Dom Wulstan Phillipson,O.S.B., in the Irish Independent, Middle Abbey Street, Dublin, 2 September 1968. <Read more ...>

Charles Gesner van der Voort (1916-1991) worked at Holland-China Trading Company (HCHC), with offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tientsin (Tianjin), Rotterdam and London. At the start of the company, in 1903, Willem Kien (1877-1970) started to work for HCHC in Shanghai, later becoming director. In 1921 he left China and became director at the Rotterdam head office, at Diergaardelaan 36.

Willem Kien obtained this photo during a visit to Hong Kong in the 1930s.

Courtesy Kien family archives <Read more ...>

Even though HCHC was taken over by Internatio in 1948, people kept referring to the company as Holland-China Trading Company. This group photo was taken for the occasion of senior manager Philip Harding Klimanek (front row, sixth from the left) leaving the company. Charles Gesner van der Voort can be found front row, first from the left, his wife Nancy third from the left. Phil Beekmeijer and his wife Ans are third row, first and second from the left.
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