Guest author Peter Crush introduces a little-known resource with valuable information about the development of Hong Kong's industry and infrastructure in the early 20th century.
THE FAR EASTERN REVIEW
(Monthly Journal published in Manila & then later Shanghai 1904 - 1941)
The logo of The Far Eastern Review and examples of front covers
Introduction
Over the past 24 months I have created a number of Gwulo forum ‘Topics’ as well as posting individual images selected from this journal (hereafter the “FER”). Administrator David asked if it would be possible to prepare an index of Hong Kong-related extracts and post this as a forum topic for the benefit of followers and other researchers of Hong Kong history. I initially baulked at this suggestion bearing in mind that the entire run of 37 annual volumes (each, with a few exceptions, having twelve monthly issues) has overall about thirty thousand pages if advertisement pages are included. It had taken me some twenty years on and off to trawl through this journal looking for any pages containing any mention of early Chinese railway construction, which is my own area of special interest. I eventually finished my index project for Chinese railways within the FER last year. That project was not made easy by the FER’s own poorly constructed and inconsistent indexes, which in some in some years were entirely completely lacking.
After further consideration I have prepared a provisional index for Hong Kong related reports within the FER based upon those annual Indexes or ‘Contents’ lists where they do exist. I have also utilized my accumulated knowledge of how this journal mutated and evolved in style over the years to search in other sections for likely references to Hong Kong (or rather “Hongkong”, as was the normal spelling in this era).
The list below should not be regarded as exhaustive. In the first few years there were no annual indexes but (sometimes) short “Contents” lists which were limited to major articles. Many shorter reports were not listed but were published within sections of the magazine captioned (inconsistently) as Railway News, Engineering News, Construction News, Mining News, Shipping News or Commercial & Financial Reports etc.
For more detailed information about this journal including its history, evolution and how to find access to library holdings it is suggested that researchers should first read the Wikipedia page about The Far Eastern Review (follow this link) which was also created by Wikipedia & Gwulo contributor ‘Chinarail’.
(Above) Examples of FER front covers containing articles about Hong Kong
Articles & Reports within the FER relating to Hong Kong <Read more ...>
