Welcome to Gwulo

Here you'll find over 50,000 pages about old Hong Kong to explore, including over 30,000 photos. The content is added by a friendly community of people who enjoy sharing what we know about Hong Kong's history, and you are very welcome to join us.

Kind regards, David

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Chow Sing

Submitted by David on Sun, 04/26/2015 - 15:00

In the second of Mary Unsworth's memoirs, she tells us about Chow Sing, the Chinese steward on her husband's boat. (Her husband, Richard Unsworth, is the "Captain" in the following text). Chow Sing suffered greatly when the plague hit Hong Kong, but in an unexpected twist the story has a happy ending.

"Chow Sing" by Mary Unsworth, copied from her original handwritten account.

Early photos of Mid-levels

Submitted by David on Sat, 04/11/2015 - 19:00

Thank you to Martyn Gregory for sharing these old photos of Mid-levels with us. They were taken in the late 1800s.

You can click on any photo to visit its page. There you can zoom in to see more detail, read any notes about the photo, and add a comment about where and when it was taken.

The photos come from several albums of photos, probably bought as souvenirs of visits to Hong Kong. Professional photographers offered a selection of popular views. Customers could choose the photos they liked, and have them mounted in an album.

1. The fire

Submitted by Admin on Sat, 03/21/2015 - 17:20

This guest post is written by David Twynham. Please click here for the background to this post.

Introduction

 On 26 February 1918, just after the running of the Derby at Happy Valley Racecourse, Hong Kong, a long bamboo matshed set up beside the course on a temporary basis for the highly popular annual three day racing programme and holding an estimated 3,000 spectators at the time, collapsed ‘like a pack of cards’ and fire was seen to break out.  

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