Hong Kong history on the MTR

Reader 'moddsey' to the rescue again:

Where did the name 'Jordan Road' come from?

The Hong Kong Government Annual Report of 1908 under Public Works states that Sixth Street and Gascoigne Rd South was renamed Jordan Rd. I believe his name is also associated with Jordan Valley in Ngau Tau Kok.

Sir John Jordan was the British Minister to the Imperial Court and helped shaped Ango-Chinese diplomacy after his arrival in Peking in 1906. He was a very influential diplomat in his day. He witnessed the overthrow of the Ching Dynasty and the Chinese Revolution of 1911.

This site mentions:

"Sir John Jordan was a well-known figure in China, greatly respected by both Chinese and foreign officials. Unlike his successors, he was not a career diplomat moving round the world from embassy to embassy. Sir John was a specialist in Chinese affairs. He had come to China as a very young man in the consular service, already well-versed in the language, and he spent his entire working life in China. He was an extremely capable person, a sinologue and sinophile, and his knowledge of all things Chinese was vast. He was not a man to overlook errors or omissions, and any consular officer reporting to him prepared his despatch with the greatest care".

A book about his career in China is detailed below:

ANGLO-CHINESE
DIPLOMACY
in the careers of
Sir John Jordan and Yˆ¢an Shih-k'ai
1906-1920
CHAN LAU KIT-CHING
HONG KONG UNIVERSITY PRESS 1978

Finally his picture can be seen at the National Portrait Gallery website.

I also asked moddsey if he knew why the Chinese name for 'Admiralty' MTR station is 'Gum Jung', translating to 'Golden Clock' and seeming to have no connection to the word Admiralty. He replies:

There was such a clock that used to adorn the entrance to Wellington Barracks (Royal Navy) facing Queensway in what is now I believe Admiralty Gardens. I will send you a scanned picture of the building later. In the old days, military buildings and warehouses lined the whole of Queensway from Murray Road onwards to Arsenal St and on the opposite side of the road after Garden Road eastwards (where Queensway Govt. Offices and Pacific Place are today).

He later added:

The "Golden Clock" of Wellington Barracks can be seen in the middle of this picture. Other references mention Admiralty as "Golden Bell" perhaps after HMS Tamar's ships bell that used to hang near the main entrance to the land-based headquarters of HMS Tamar. The original HMS Tamar was scuttled during the early days of the Japanese invasion in December 1941 and sunk to the bottom of Victoria Harbour.

In my previous email I mentioned Admiralty Gardens. The park may be called Harcourt Gardens.

Moddsey has also sent in some pictures showing Causeway Bay at different times.

In the 1910's, this picture of the bay shows that the inland side is already reclaimed, but the sea side (present-day Victoria Park) is a typhoon shelter. These pictures of a tram and tram station on the causeway also clearly show boats tied up on one side of the causeway.

There is little change in this 1950's photo, but by the 1960's we can see the newly reclaimed Victoria Park, so both sides of the causeway are now landlocked.

MrB

Reader moddsey has some comments on the origin of the Yau Ma Tei name as described above, plus a couple of photos of that area at the start of the 20th century:

As for Yau Ma Tei, I am not too sure about the Yau and Ma families. My recollection is that its name comes from oil (YAU) and hemp (MA). Here is the information that I had read many years ago:

Source: Old British Kowloon by J. W. Hayes, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol. 6 (1966)

'Yau Ma Ti is not mentioned by name in the Commisioners' Report of 1862, and its earlier origin is therefore in question. However, at the latest estimate, its principal temple, dedicated to Tin Hau, the Queen of Heaven, was located there soon as the Kowloon Peninsula changed hands: two stone lions standing outside the present building are dated 1864. Some years later the Registrar General included a brief mention of Yau Ma Ti in his Census Returns for 1876 in which he wrote:

"Yau Ma Ti in Kowloon has become a new Town within the last few months, and it will continue to increase if facilities are afforded to the boat builders and to the junk people who repair thither to careen and repair their vessels, for on these the trade of the place chiefly depends".

In 1882 Osbert Chadwick wrote of the formation of the "irregular group of houses" and the "lack of proper streets" in growing villages like Yau Ma Ti. He went on to describe the environs of the town as follows:

"To the north of Yau Ma Ti the shore is lined with establishments for boat people or other trades connected with shipping.... Just to the south of Yau Ma Ti is a sort of mud-dock which dries at half ebb or little bit later. This is occupied by many boats some of which are too old and leaky to go out, and lie here permanently, being used as dwellings. This causes a serious nuisance".

Continuing on....

Under Note 38 of reference to Yau Ma Ti: The name means Oil and Hemp Ground.'

The RAS also published a few years ago a hard cover book titled "In the Heart of Metropolis - Yau Ma Tei". You may wish to check it out to see if they have more information about the origin of the district.

P.S. I have attached picture postcards of Yau Ma Ti from the 1910s and 1920s for reference.

I paid a visit to Central library to check the book Moddsey mentions above, and see if there was any other sign of the Yau Ma Tei name. If it only came into use after the 1860's, it should definitely be translated literally. If it could be considered a phonetic translation of two old tribes names, the name should have been in use for several hundred years.

First I looked for references to 'yau ma ti' in the old newspapers that are available for search online. The earliest reference I could fins was in the October 20, 1869 issue of the China daily: "ROBBERY AT YAU-MA TI. Lee Ashui, Lee Asee and Tsun Afook were next placed in dock charged with the robbery (with menaces) from the house of Jeremiah Foley, constable at Yau-mah-ti on the 29th of August last."

Next stop was the book 'Mapping Hong Kong - A historical atlas' by Hal Empson, which has a range of English- and Chinese-language maps. That takes us a little earlier, with an 1866 'Map of Sun on district' by Italian missionary Simeone Volonteri showing 'jau ma ti' (sic). None of the earlier Chinese-language maps show it, but then they tend to cover much larger areas and only refer to islands and large towns.

Finally to the "In the Heart of Metropolis - Yau Ma Tei" book, which has an article 'Nineteenth Century Yaumatei' by the same author as the 'Old British Kowloon' article mentioned by Moddsey. Here are a few pargraphs that are relevant to the question:

"In Kwangtung Province the typical small settlement was the lineage based agricultural village. Other types of settlement also existed. One such was the coastal settlement which developed around an anchorage. In the Hong Kong area such settlements are possibly older than the agricultural. Archeological evidence rlating to the Bronze Age points more to occupation by sea-coast people rather than landsmen at that date. It is natural to expect settlements related to a water economy in this river, delta and coastal area, studded with islands, beaches and anchorages. Except for the fertile plain near Deep Bay and along the Sham Chun River whree the Five Great Clans of the New Territories settled, the opportunity to develop easily and profitably a large scale agricultural economy was limited in the immediate hong Kong area."

"[In 1864] Yaumatei possessed a good, safe anchorage for sampans in a shallow, but substantial, creek, of some six acres in area. This long-reclaimed creek ran inland for some three hundred yards in two branches. One went as far as the junction of today's Jordan Road and Parkes Stereet, the other to the eastern side of today's Nathan Road, in the vicinity of Saigon Street. The innermost parts of both branches were further protected by breakwaters. Today's pak Hoi Street runs close to where the northern shore of the creek used to be and doubtless takes its name from this fact. This creek is very like many other favoured anchorages in the New Territories: it was protected by a military post from about 1800. The anchorage was thus in use well before 1860, with its temple nearby, but the growth of this anchorage into something which could be called a genuine market town began only in 1864.

Later in the article, the section discussion Yau Ma Tei's economy begins: "Yaumatei means "Oil Sesame ground". An area to the north of the town was called "Ma Tei" ("Sesame ground"). At some date, the oil-sesame plant was presumably grown and harvested here. The name of yaumatei suggests that the town looked to the land for its basic economy, but in fact the town was originally predominantly seaward-looking."

Where does that leave us? Well, the name certainly pre-dates the British arrival in Kowloon, but does it also pre-date the Cantonese speakers? The author above uses the direct translation "Oil Sesame Ground", implying it is a Cantonese name. But their description of the early settlement and its focus as an anchorage rather than a town also fits quite nicely with the idea of a place where seafolk and land-based people would meet.

Short of time travel, I guess there is no way to be sure of the answer, but it's an interesting twist to think that some older languages may still exist in the local placenames.

MrB

for the clarification,

MrB

Zerocube, thanks for writing in. I'd heard the hanging story several times in the past, but you are right, that is just a made up story. The April 14, 1908 edition of the China Mail had an article 'Death of Mr Rennie. Body found in Harbour" which includes the text:

Just as we go to press we learn that the body of Mr. A. H. Rennie, manager and founder or the Junk Bay flour mills, was found floating in Lyeemoon Pass this afternoon.

And:

Later.
We now understand that Mr Rennie accidentally fell overboard from his launch, Canada, whilst going to Junk Bay, and his body was picked up by the launch after a search.

This website has more on the story, and says:

The Mill started operation in 1905 and closed in April 1908 because of high production cost and poor quality of product. The failure in business had made Mr. Rennie so disappointed that he jumped into the sea and drowned himself at Lei Yue Mun, 3 km from his flour mill on 14 April 1908.

Thanks again for the correction,

MrB