100 years ago on Monday five policemen, at least 2 members of the public and two bandits lost their lives in a shoot out that quickly became known as the Gresson Street Affray. A month before the catastrophic Race Course fire, Hong Kong had been receiving daily news of the fighting in Europe for the past four years. This unprecedented massacre of policemen in the course of their very ordinary duty shocked Hong Kong. Two days later it was said that half the colony - some 250,000 people - were on the streets to see the funeral procession that resulted.
This weekend the South China Post Magazine has a feature writeen by Stuart Heaver on the incident and the part that I have played in bringing it to light again, and Annemarie Evans' Hong Kong Heritage on RTHK Radio 3 has interviews this week and last. I've put up links on my website wwwsocialhistoryhk.com, but can't work out how to include them here - sorry!
Here's the link to the
Here's the link to the podcast with Annemarie: http://podcast.rthk.hk/podcast/item_epi.php?pid=164&lang=en-US&id=106313
And the SCMP article: http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2129522/…
To find out more, the Gresson Street Affray is covered in detail in chapter ten of Patricia's book, Policing Hong Kong, An Irish History.