What's new and updated on the Gwulo website:

General

• Please can I ask a favour? In the next few days I'll send out a newsletter email with the launch offer for the Chinese translation of my first book. Please could you take a moment to forward that email to a friend who reads Chinese and who you think might enjoy the photos and stories of old Hong Kong? It will be a great help to me.
   

• If you went to Quarry Bay School around 1981, while it was in temporary premises at Victoria Barracks, you might be able to find yourself in this photo. (Click on the 'Zoom' tab to see the photo's full detail.)

  

   

• It looks as though the fabled Japanese sword buried under Hong Kong's Japanese war memorial has finally been unearthed.
   
• Recordings of appx. 200 interviews from the 1960s and 70s are available in the archive of the Time to Remember show by RTHK.
   
• The recent updates I made to the website broke the wartime diary emails for several days. If you ever have trouble viewing a wartime diary email (or you'd like to look up the diary entries for a given date), please use this page: Diary pages from this date
   
• The 1888 Jurors List is now online to view, and we've started work on typing up the list for 1887. This is all done by volunteers, so if you can spare around half an hour, please join in and type up a page.
   
• New memories of the Baginton Fields Hostel, Coventry, UK have been added in the comments to that page.
   
• A report from 1898 on Bicycling on Bowen Road.
   
• Detection of the 1953 New Year's Eve murder at the Peak firing range
   

• David Donaldson has kept these football lineup sheets from when he was serving in the military in Hong Kong with the King's Own Scottish Borderers in 1949-1951 and 1952. He was the goalkeeper.
   

  

  

  

   

• Readers ask:
  • Where was the Murray Army School in the early 1900s?
     
  • Does anyone remember any details about the murder / robbery-gone-wrong that took place in Paradise Gardens in the mid-1970s? 
     
  • Any ideas of the type & origin of the British cannon barrel found buried 3m below Mody Road, Tsim Sha Tsui?
     
  • Trying to contact Carol Jean Sloan.
     
  • His son is looking for any recollections of HK footballer, Yuen Kuen Yick.
     
  • What are good resources about the history of Swire, and what should be included in a video about their history?
     
  • Does this c.1915 photo show a Manila Jockey Club badge?
     

The Chinese version of Gwulo's book

On Monday I received the first samples of the new book. Monday also happened to be my birthday, so it was the perfect birthday present! 

Here is Volume 1 of my books, available in English and Chinese for the first time:

The Chinese book, 老照港古: 香江華洋舊事相中尋, will be launched on Wednesday at the Hong Kong Book Fair (16-22 July 2025). You'll find it on stand 1D-C02, just look for publisher 非凡出版.
 

Places

What's new and updated on the Gwulo website:

General

• Nicholas Kitto has uploaded a collection of postcards his great-grandfather mailed from Hong Kong and Canton in 1908. There's a sample below, and you can see the full collection here.
   

  

   

• The Baginton Fields Hostel on the outskirts of Coventry was the initial home of several Hong Kong internees who were repatriated to the UK in 1945 but didn't have a place to stay. I've added the few mentions we have of the hostel to that page, but if you can add any memories of what it was like, please leave a comment there.
   
• The new land of the East Point reclamation [c.1865- ] was home to several different industries, identified by their large chimney stacks. No traces of those old chimneys remain, as East Point is now part of the busy Causeway Bay shopping and entertainment district.
   

• If you're trying to work out when a photo was taken, it helps to have a collection of landmarks in mind. The extension of St John's Cathedral during 1869-72 is a good example. If we can see the east end of the cathedral, we can check the appearance of the large window to tell if the photo was taken before or after the extension was completed:
   

  

   

• Thank you to everyone who attended the recent talk I gave in Cheltenham. Thanks also to Martin for organising the event, to Alastair for his support, and to Nat at The Chapel for his help on the day. (If you need a venue in Cheltenham, The Chapel is well worth a look.)
   

  

   

  

   

• Readers ask:
  • Can anyone help find a British Army school operating on HK Island, 1901-1904?
     

  • Does anyone have any ideas about these photographs. Uniform, car and location? Not sure if the date might be 1930s?
     

    

    

     

The Chinese version of Gwulo's book

I received this photo earlier in the week, showing that printing is underway. 

The book will be launched at the Hong Kong Book Fair (16-22 July 2025), under the title:

老照港古
香江華洋舊事相中尋
 

Places

What's new and updated on the Gwulo website:

General

• The Hongkong Almanack and Directory, from 1846, 1848, and 1850, is a useful source of information about Hong Kong in its first decade as a British colony.
   
• Quarry Bay School will soon celebrate its centenary, and hopes to hear from any alumni.
   
• 1906 The Duke of Connaught visits Hong Kong.
   
• Old boundary walls in East Point that still survive.
   
• If you've booked a ticket for my talk next week in Cheltenham, I'm looking forward to seeing you there. (This talk is fully booked, but if you'd like to arrange a Gwulo talk nearer to you and later in the year, please get in touch.)
   
• Readers ask:
  • Looking for additional evidence of Dr. Harry Talbot's involvement with the Chinese Red Cross Medical Relief Corp prior to his internment in Stanley Camp.
     
  • Was Cynthia Maureen EAGER (Stanley Camp internee, and Olympics swimmer) born in 1935 or 1936?
     
  • Where on Cheung Chau was the Cheung Chau Assembly Hall [c.1924-????] located?
     
  • Seeking Archival Records or References on Tung Shing Construction Co. (同盛建築公司), active in Early 20th Century Hong Kong.
     
  • What used to be on the site of the present-day The Summit?
     
  • What is the third chimney in this c. 1873 photo of East Point?
     

The Chinese version of Gwulo's book

The translation of my first book is finished, and the layout is nearly complete, so we're on track to have the Chinese version available to buy next month, at the Hong Kong Book Fair and in local bookstores. Thank you to Extraordinary Publishing (非凡出版) for making this happen so quickly.

Recent anniversaries

• 6 June 1944: D-Day and the Normandy Landings
  It always surprises me how quickly the news of D-Day reached the civilians interned in Stanley Camp. John Charter was one of the internees, and his diary entry for 8 June begins:
  The Anglo–American invasion of the continent has begun! What excitement. When I heard someone in the yard below yell out the news at the top of his voice I thought he was trying to be funny capping yesterday’s news of the fall of Rome! But it is true. The feeling in camp is one of great excitement. “At last”, says everyone. We know that it means hundreds and thousands of our countrymen will be killed and that is a sobering thought; but we also know the invasion had to come sometime or other and the sooner it came the sooner would this ghastly war be ended. And now the great day has arrived. Apparently it was launched on the night of June 5th to 6th. How we should love to hear a BBC news bulletin now instead of having to deduce what we can from the reports from the enemy news agencies which appear in a garbled form in the ‘HK News’. Continue reading ...
   

• 2 June 1953: The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
  We've got Barbara Anslow's written recollections of the celebrations in Hong Kong, and lots of photos of the celebrations too. (And another important anniversary to note on this date - it was the first time that Coronation Chicken was served!)

  

Receiving the BEM

The British Empire Medal is presented locally by the King's representative, so on 29 May we drove to County Hall for the ceremony. My thanks to the Lord Lieutenant, the High Sheriff, and all the team at Pembrokeshire County Council for their warm welcome, and to the Cadets for giving up their time to attend and adding a formal touch to the event with their smart appearance. We enjoyed the ceremony very much, and it was a lovely bonus that my mum and members of our Hong Kong family were able to experience it too.

Places

What's new and updated on the Gwulo website:

General

• Readers' memories of:
  • Richard “Dick” HUGHES C.B.E. (aka "The Cardinal") [1906-1984]
     
  • Telegraph Bay Village in the 1970s & 80s
     
  • Replacing the Armed Forces' telephone cables in 1963
     
• A new wartime diary written by Andrew Salmon is being added to Gwulo. The latest entry to be added is from 25 September 1942:
  • ... after days of standing by, we were all paraded and addressed by a Lieutenant Wada through his interpreter, Niimori: "You are going to a pleasant land, where you will be well looked after. I will be in charge of you. Remember my face."
     
  • That statement was wrong in so many ways, as Salmon was one of the POWs who were about to board the Lisbon Maru.
     
• Old newspapers are valuable resources when researching history. The HK Public Library's MMIS has been a good tool for reading old Hong Kong newspapers online but it has recently been discontinued, so we're waiting to see how well its replacement works. As an alternative, here's another way to access the Overland China Mail.
   
• Flogging was the harshest corporal punishment given to prisoners in colonial Hong Kong. On a recent visit to the National Archives I stumbled upon letters from Governor Hennessy to London discussing this, along with details of prison life in 1870s Hong Kong. Join me to explore them in this video:
  

   
   

• CityUnseen has been documenting the Heavy Draw-Off Fire Hydrants around Hong Kong. You can view them on a Map or a List
   
• Readers have helped solve two long-standing mysteries in recent weeks.
  • First, what happened to Ellen Olson after she got married? She seemed to just disappear. It turns out the family memory of her becoming Ellen Melcher was a red herring, sending us off on a fruitless search. Now it's been discovered she actually married a Mr Ritchie, and then a Mr Hilkers, and all has become clear.
     

  • Second, where was the building shown in the photo below? At first it was thought to have been above Happy Valley on Broadwood Road, then there was a time we thought it was in Kowloon, but now we believe it was along Wanchai Road.
     

    

     

• A bonus to receiving the BEM is that I also received an invitation to attend last Tuesday's garden party at Buckingham Palace. The sun shone, the palace gardens were beautiful, the military bands were tuneful, and there was cake! A happy day.
   

  

  
   

• Readers are looking for:
  • School photos for Saint Mary's School in 1935-1941, when the reader's mother and her sisters attended
     

  • Which year was this map drawn?
     

    

Places

What's new and updated on the Gwulo website:

General

• I've added a new scanned paper map to Gwulo's maps: '1882 Map of North shore, showing locations of sewers & latrines'. (You can also view it as an overlay with markers to see the buildings in that area.)
   
• A bench has been erected on Carlton Hill in Edinburgh in memory of Douglas Ford GC, who was executed by the Japanese in 1943.
   

• Readers have been gathering photos and information about the various P&O headquarters buildings through the years:

  

  • 1st Generation [c.1845-c.1881]
  • 2nd Generation [c.1850-c.1885]
  • 3rd Generation [1887-????]
  • 4th Generation [1924-1961]
  • 5th Generation [c.1965-c.1980]
     
• Readers ask:
  • If you remember the British military building that used to stand on Homantin Hill Road, Simon911 has a couple of questions for you.
     
  • Looking for information about the attack by the Japanese army on Lyemun Barracks, and what happened to the men in the Royal Artillery there who became POWs.
     

• Can you identify any of the people in this photo? (Click 'Zoom' to see a larger copy with more detail.)

  

   

• Readers would like to contact:
  • Willy Freeman, Bermuda
     
  • Jim Terry, Blarney, County Cork

Places & Streets