What's new and updated on the Gwulo website:

General

• What it was like to play golf at Deep Water Bay in 1926
   
• I'm currently adding Joan MACLEOD (née WHITELEY)'s wartime diary to Gwulo. Joan was a nurse, working at Bowen Road Military Hospital until the Japanese moved all the nurses into Stanley Camp. I'm very grateful to Joan's family for sharing it with us.
   
• The 1926 Rainstorm
   
• Memories of growing up in the North Point Estate in the 1970s
   
• Looking for Christmas gifts? If you need a gift for family, friends, or colleagues with a Hong Kong connection, consider Gwulo's books! Here's how to order the original English Volumes 1-5, and the new Chinese translation of Volume 1.
   
• Readers ask for help with:
  • Where in Pokfulam were Farm Lots 16 and 28? They were the site of Dent & Co.'s bungalow.
     
  • Looking for anyone who has a family connection to the A.S. Watson Company, to conduct oral history interviews.
     
  • Where was house #1, named 'Sunnyside', located on Cheung Chau?
     
  • Looking for descendants of William Anderson of Anderson Music. Andie is trying to fulfill a wartime promise that his grandfather made to William.
     
  • Looking for information about the Old Cinnabar Factory in Lei Yue Mun.
     

  • Looking for the location of this c. 1929 photo:
     

    

    
     

  • Any thoughts on what this pennant was used for? It has been suggested it might have some link to the Lady Maurine.

    

    
     

  • Can you add any names to this 1990 photo of HAECO staff?

    

     

  • Can you identify any of the people in this wedding photo, or the location?

    

     

  • What were the names of the buildings in this c. 1888 view of The Peak?
     

    

    
     

Places

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