The Hong Kong retail silversmith WAI KEE 惠記 [in Mandarin: HUI JI] is one of the few retailers that truly spans three centuries; founded in 1885, the firm is still operating in almost the same location by Pedder Street with the same specialities of pearls, jewellery and silver wares. As opposed to other similar firms operating today in Hong Kong that lay claim to longevities in trading, Wai Kee is the oldest retail jeweller and silversmith in Hong Kong. <Read more ...>
Date picture taken (to nearest decade for older photos):
1908
James Steven visited Hong Kong in 1908. He was on a world trip part pleasure, part business for his father's firm, Steven & Struthers, a Glasgow brassfounders, that sold brass and bronze ships' chandlery, propellers, pumps, and lighthouse lanterns world-wide. He brught back postcards from his trip and this was one of them. I suspect he stayed in the Hong Kong Hotel. <Read more ...>
Date picture taken (to nearest decade for older photos):
1926
This picture shows Des Voeux Road after the August 1926 typhoon (I think) in south-eastern direction (the smaller building on the right where the road bends to the left had the offices of the Dutch Indian Commercial Bank, the Nederlandsch-Indische Handelsbank, whose ground floor had been under water as well). The buliding covered with mats on the right is the Hong Kong Hotel which is being demolished after its fire. <Read more ...>
One of five photographs from Hong Kong in our family collection. John Mitchell Dunlop was based there for a short while during the early 1880s, and qualified as a ship's engineer during that period. He later settled in Bangkok, becoming manager of the Bangkok Dock Co.Ltd..
Remark: JM Dunlop worked for Blue Funnel Line at Holt's Wharf.
