Welcome to the new readers who've joined us from my recent talks in Glasgow and Exeter. It was a pleasure to meet you, and thank you to everyone who brought along their family photos & stories to share.

On with what's new and updated on the Gwulo website:

General

• 1864: Gas lights turned on for the first time
   
• Dairy Farm ice-making at Aberdeen
   
• The arch & foundation stone of the old Tung Wah Smallpox Hospital have been removed from the garden at the Kennedy Town bus terminus, but hopefully will be reinstalled at a new location.
   
• Extracts from early English-language newspapers related to Hong Kong, 1836-1844.
   
• A 1939 home movie taken on Cheung Chau (thanks to Moddsey for the link.)
   
• City boundary stone found near Wanchai Gap?
   
• Notes about the first Central Market.
   
• Answering a question from a previous newsletter, Mary Pritchard Moline was interned in Yangchow C Camp from March 1943 until August 1945.
   
• Tip: if you want to take a closer look at any of the photos in the newsletter, click on the photo to visit its page on the Gwulo website, then click on the 'Zoom' tab where you can enlarge the image.
   
• Readers ask for help with:
  • Translating a Chinese inscription
     
  • Where was the ship-breaking yard between Tai Lam and Kowloon around 1959-60?
     
  • Margot is looking for any information about her grandmother, Edith Carlotta Johnson-Lee Gegg Ainslie. Edith lived in Hong Kong from before 1920 until she died in 1951. During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, she was interned in Stanley Camp.
     

  • Where was this photo taken:
     

    

     

  • This sailing boat, Eastlight, was built in Hong Kong for the Royal Navy in 1939. What happened to it between then and the 1950s?
     

    

     

  • Looking for information about other pioneers of early Hong Kong Plastic Industries

    

     

  • Can you identify any of these people:

    

Gwulo Website

• If you've ever made a 'Place' page on Gwulo, please read this:
  • If you've ever made a 'Place' page on Gwulo, please check this list to see if your name appears. If you see your name there, it means that one or more of the Places you created has its 'current condition' set to 'unknown'. Please click on your name to see a new page with a list of the Places affected.
  • Look down the list of Places, and if you see any that you know are currently in use, ruined, or demolished, please edit their page and set the 'current condition' accordingly. Of course if you don't know the current condition of a Place, just leave the 'current condition' set to 'unknown'.
  • This is valuable housekeeping that helps make Gwulo's maps work better.
     
• Gwulo's books - 9,000 copies sold!
  • At some point in November we sold the 9,000th copy of Gwulo's books. I was worried that once we left Hong Kong the sales of my books would dry up, so it's great to see them continue to sell. (This total is just for the English-language books. I'm looking forward to finding out how the Chinese translation is selling when I receive my first sales report from the publisher.)
  • UK readers, I now have copies of the Chinese translation of my Volume 1 here in the UK. If you'd like to order them (£17 a copy, includes postage within the UK), please reply to this email and let me know.
  • Here are the other shops and online stores where you can buy my books.
  • US readers, unfortunately Amazon UK isn't currently shipping my books to the United States. I believe we'll have to wait for the tariff situation to settle down before they resume.
     
• Future Gwulo talks
  • Exeter: I'm already planning to give another talk there next year.
  • Glasgow / Scotland: Although Glasgow has a population over four times the size of Exeter, less people attended the talk in Glasgow than in Exeter. We didn't sell enough tickets to cover the cost of renting the venue. If anyone has ideas for how to attract more people to attend a future talk in Scotland, please let me know.
  • Other locations: If you've got a group of people that would enjoy seeing old Hong Kong photos and hearing their stories, please get in touch to discuss setting up a talk.
     
• Do AI-generated images have a place on a history website like Gwulo?
  • Several contributors have experimented with using AI to generate coloured, sharp images from old low-resolution black & white photos. I believe that these will cause us problems, so I've asked contributors to only upload original images in future, not AI-generated images. Read more about the thinking behind this decision.
     

Places

What's new and updated on the Gwulo website:

General

• 1871: the occupants of Nos. 76-90 Queen's Road Central
   
• The Sham Shui Po "Cello", made in the POW camp from an old oil drum
   
• Where did Mary Prichard Moline, a missionary in China, spend WW2? She arrived in Hong Kong in 1940, and left China in 1946, but the years between are currently a blank.
   
• The first commerce college in HK began at 28 Caine Road, well before 1920s
   
• c. 1892: Mental Hospital on High Street & surrounding buildings
   
• Malaria Stores around Hong Kong.
   
• The first time Kai Tak saw two Boeing 747s
   
• Hong Kong place names in the 1970s
   
• If you have friends in Scotland or Southwest England who'd enjoy seeing old Hong Kong photos and hearing their stories, I'll be grateful if you can share details of my upcoming talks with them. Bookings have been slow so far, so any help is very welcome! (I'll include links to details on Gwulo and Facebook - please share whichever is easier for you.)
  • Talk in Glasgow on 1 November. Details on Gwulo website or Facebook
     
  • Talk in Exeter on 8 November. Details on Gwulo website or Facebook
     
• Readers are looking for information about:
  • Does anyone remember John Bruce, who did his National Service with the Queen's Own Hussars in Hong Kong from 1955 to 1957. 
     
  • Where in TST was the "Iranee / Irani Bungalow" located?
     
  • How long did the Cornwall Street Substation have the incorrect sign, Cornwall Road Substation?
     
  • Does this lithograph show HMS Alligator?
     

Places

What's new and updated on the Gwulo website:

General

• We've booked venues for my talks in November, and I'm looking forward to meeting Gwulo's readers and contributors, from north and south! (If you have friends or organisations that might enjoy the talks, I'll be grateful if you can let them know.)
  • Glasgow talk - 1 Nov  - details and booking
     
  • Exeter talk - 8 Nov  - details and booking
• This week marks the 83rd anniversary of the sinking of the Lisbon Maru, which was transporting allied POWs from Hong Kong to Japan. Read survivor Andrew Salmon's recollections of the incident (scroll down to his entry for 27 Sep 1942 to begin).
   
• If you've noticed old pages reappearing at the top of Gwulo's 'Recent content' page, but without any apparent changes to their text, it's because I've just fixed a broken link that appears somewhere on that page. I'm about halfway through checking a list of broken links that Google generates, so I should be finished in another week or two.
   
• A Japanese Gunner's Journey, 1940-1943: Artillery Actions during the Pacific War by Dr. Kwong Chi Man and his team, History Department, HKBU. This collection of photos from a Japanese soldier's album includes Hong Kong scenes of guns, batteries, pillboxes, air raid tunnels and wartime scenes.
   
• Readers are looking for information about:
  • Chan Tuck & Co., Tailor & Outfitter
     
  • Looking for maps of the original Customs Pass Road
     

  • Can anyone identify the people in this photo:

    

     

  • Does anyone remember the HK Riding Academy which was located close to the RHKJC Beas River stables in the late 1960s and 70s? 

    

Places