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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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Photo (1): Sketches at Hong Kong

Submitted by David on Sat, 09/09/2023 - 12:00
'Sketches at Hong Kong'

One year after the 1881 census, the Illustrated London News (ILN) published this full-page engraving, titled ‘Sketches at Hong Kong’.

The ILN was almost the same age as British Hong Kong, first appearing in 1842. It caused a stir, looking very different from the typical newspaper of the time. Where the newspaper norm was text and lots of it, issue No. 1 of the ILN crammed 32 illustrations into its 16 pages.

This new style was a great success, with the growth of the ILN outpacing even Hong Kong’s. By the end of 1842 circulation had passed 60,000. It reached 200,000 in 1855, and continued to grow.

The illustrations that drove these sales were produced by skilled engravers. They’d receive artists’ sketches, or later photographs, and set to work engraving the images for use on the printing presses. I imagined they’d be engraving metal plates, but in fact they used wooden blocks. Not just any wood though, they used a very dense, hard type of wood known as boxwood. In use, the boxwood blocks were harder wearing than the metal plates of the day, an important point when they’d have to print hundreds of thousands of copies. 

The huge volume of copies printed means that many have survived, making them a good source of images of early Hong Kong. We mustn’t assume they’re all accurate, however. If the original image wasn’t very clear the engravers would need to use their own judgement, and having never been to Hong Kong they could easily make mistakes.

Fortunately there aren’t any glaring mistakes here. The artist not only did a good job of sketching, but also of choosing scenes that would be popular with overseas viewers. I doubt the artist had any plans to start a trend, but as we look at the postcards sold to tourists thirty, forty, and even fifty years later, we’ll see many of these themes repeated.
 


The engraving has a lot more detail than you can see here. To take a closer look you can use Gwulo's Zoom feature. I've recorded a short video showing how it works: How to zoom in to photos on Gwulo

New on Gwulo: 2023, week 35

Submitted by David on Sat, 09/02/2023 - 20:00

What's new and updated on the Gwulo website:
 

General

Sew-sew women and bound feet

Submitted by David on Sun, 08/27/2023 - 16:00

This is the third and last of my recent purchases.

Sew-sew women and bound feet

 

Who: The main characters are two 'sew-sew' women, who would mend and adjust items of clothing for a small fee. There is also a younger girl - probably a daughter of one of the women - with her back to us, leaning against the little stool on the right. I've just been writing about a similar photo for a section on hawkers in my next book, which is why this one caught my eye.
 

What: Their baskets carry scraps of material they use in their work, and also the pot that held their lunch.

Baskets and pans

The other photo I mentioned showed similar items, but under the magnifying glass I also noticed a difference.

1950s Sampans at Shau Kei Wan

Submitted by David on Sun, 08/20/2023 - 23:00
1950s Sampans at Shau Kei Wan

 

Who: The main characters in this scene are the people on the sampan in the foreground.

People on sampan

As far as I can remember, in most if not all the photos we have of sampans, it is a woman rowing. (While in the photos we have of western-style rowing boats, the crews are always men.) This photo follows the pattern, with a smiling young mother rowing the boat.

Her two passengers are presumably heading out to one of the larger boats in the harbour. The fishermen typically wore dark clothes, not lighter colours that show the dirt more easily. So perhaps the man at the front of the boat is visiting on business, or maybe he is heading back to a boat after attending some special occasion ashore?
 

What: The boat above the lady has two large baskets hanging off the back. They are two very different designs, so were they made for specific uses?

Baskets on sampan

Several of the other boats are festooned with laundry, including a fancy three-level washing line on the boat in the distance (Update: JohnS notes the three-level line is more likely being used to dry fish). Must have been good drying weather that day!

Laundry drying on boats

 

Where: The postcard originally had this caption at bottom left, identifying the location as the harbour at Shau Kei Wan.

Postcard caption

 

When: This is a Real Photo Postcard (RPPC), but as they were sold in Hong Kong from the 1920s through to the 1950s, it doesn't narrow down the date very much. 

Sometimes the back of an RPPC is pre-printed with details of the paper's manufacturer, and that can help pin down the date.

Back of postcard ET001

No manufacturer's details here though. Instead the paper looks to have been sold with a blank back, then the postcard seller used an inked stamp to add the text and the 'W H' stamp box. From the Hong Kong RPPCs I've seen, those with pre-printed backs were mostly produced before WW2, while those with stamped backs came after the war. Based on that, I'll guess the 1950s for the date this photo was taken.

If you can spot any clues in the photo that help identify the date, or if you have a mailed copy of this postcard with a postmark that shows a date, please let us know in the comments below.