1946 Funeral Procession

David
Mon, 09/22/2014 - 19:30
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1946 Funeral Procession

Photo courtesy of reader Geoffrey:

This pic is surreal. Could not possibly imagine all these walking wreaths and two congregations of marching bands taking up the whole road for a funeral possession. And what about that stone wall in the middle - what purpose does it serve? Have absolutely no clue about the location once again.

Photo courtesy of reader Geoffrey:

This pic is surreal. Could not possibly imagine all these walking wreaths and two congregations of marching bands taking up the whole road for a funeral possession. And what about that stone wall in the middle - what purpose does it serve? Have absolutely no clue about the location once again.

 

Date picture taken
1947
Tags
Waterloo Road
Gallery
1946 Funeral procession
Shows place(s)
Yau Ma Tei Theatre [1930- ]

Comments

Permalink
Submitted by
T (not verified)
on
Mon, 09/10/2007 - 12:56

Hi there,

That was a typical nullah somewhere. The exact location could be difficult.

However there is a funeral parlour in Tai Kok Tsui that might have dated back to the 1940's and there was a nullah close by. Part of that stream still exist today, which runs near the railroad/Mongkok Stadium towards the shoreline in a fairly straight line. Along it's route today there is a short street between Prince Edward Road and Nathan Road called 'Nullah Road'. The side street is very easy to locate as there are a few gasoline stations there. The Nullah had gone underground though.

Best Regards,
T

Hi there,

Just checked and according to Wiki this Funeral Parlour only dated back to the 1950's, so the Nullahs nearly might not have much to do with the one in the photo. The homepage of the Parlour does not provide any information concerning their historical background.

Gotta have some cross references using other old Hong Kong photo albums in the market for comparison. I remember I have browse some of those by famous photographers which also have some funeral march photo in them.

Best Regards,
T

Any idea how far the procession would travel? Would it just do a circuit in the area, or make a longer journey?

Looking on the 1947 map of Kowloon, there are several roads in the area with nullahs. They all had covered sections like the photo above, usually where side streets would need to cross over the nullah :

  • Waterloo Road. The nullah was open along several sections: Soares Ave - Victory Ave, Victory Ave - Peace Ave, Yim Po Fong St - near Pitt St, then Nathan Rd to Ferry St with covers at Portland St, Shanghai St, Reclamation St, and Canton Rd. Ferry Street marked the 1947 shoreline.
  • Soy Street. Nullah open from Portland Street to Ferry Street, again with covered sections at Shanghai St, Reclamation St, and Canton Rd.
  • Nelson Street. Same pattern as Soy Street.
  • Argyle Street. Nullah open from Portland Street to Nathan Road, and Nathan Road to the railway bridge.

Could it be any of those?

I also had a message by email suggesting another couple of nullahs in Kowloon, but they seem too far away?

The nullah photo shows the funeral procession making a U-turn at the nullah with the photographer standing in a buidling looking down over the proceedings and taking the picture. The area appears to be residemtial as well as commercial with warehouse type buildings lining the road.
 
The photo of the nullah in the middle of the road could well be that of Nam Cheong St (nullah now decked over) in Sham Shui Po or Tonkin St (open nullah) in Cheung Sha Wan.

MrB

 - I saw roadworks on Waterloo Road a couple of years back, where they had dug up the center of the road outside the Fire Station, near the YWCA. You could see the stone-lined nullah looking very similar to the style of the one in the picture. So the nullahs are still there, just covered over with concrete slabs, and with a road layed on top.

 - In section 7 of Paul Tsui Ka Cheung's Memoirs, he mentions the Argyle Street Nullah, as shown below. There's lots of information there about Hong Kong in the first half of the 20th Century.

Mongkok in 1931 - 3
The custom-built Kowloon Branch of Wah Yan College was located at the corner of Tung Choy Street and Nelson Street - Two blocks away to the east of Nathan Road, and One block away to the south of Argyle Street in Mongkok. blocks away from Nathan Road. When the school was built, it faced a wide open space in front, as by then none of the buildings which now stand to the east of Tung Choy Street up to the railway, and none of those buildings to the north of Nelson Street up to Argyle street had yet been built. Even the north side of Argyle Street was partly built.

The was a nullah running right down the middle of Argyle Street, originating from Lion Rock along the upper part of Waterloo Road. I recalled making a trip form Mongkok, visiting a relative at To Kwa Wan, by way of a route across the hills at Homantin. We started from Tung Choy Street, via Argyle Street which stopped short, one block to the east of the railway bridge. Access to the site where the junction of Princess Margaret/Waterloo Road/Argyle Street, now fronting the China and Power Buildings, could only be by way of a foot path along the bank of a nullah, from under the railway bridge. A greater part hilly areas of Homantin District were mainly burial grounds for the Dead, with the odd stone- cutters working here and there. The Diocesan Boys' School was already there, at the top of the hill, which was then regarded to be "somewhere in the wilderness".

Hi there,

The Nullahs in Waterloo Road and Nam Cheong Street then looked too wide to match the one in the old photo. At least my faint memory of the area told me that. Have to look for other old photos for comparison.

T

More questions in by email:

The nullah photo sparked my interest as to why the procession made a U-turn at the nullah. Could it be that the procession made its way to the home of the family of the deceased to pay its final respects before burial? The photographer in the building may indicate that this may have been the case. Then I looked again at the series of photographs. The Temple street address that Geoffrey gave appears to be located more towards Yau Ma Tei side. The procession on the wide road would appear to be Nathan Rd but moving northbound well away from Tsimshatsui and Jordan. I suggested Sham Shui Po/ Cheung Sha Wan simply for the reason of the proliferation of warehouses that lined the street and the presence of nullahs nearby.

Two questions that Geoffrey may be able to assist are:

1. Where was his grandmother's chldhood or family home located? This may help solve the nullah photo

2. Where was she buried? This may help solve the route of the procession or even the nullah photo.

I think the question asked above is why would the procession would make a detour at this point? In this photo they appear to have come out of a side street at the top of the photo, turned right, then walked a short way before making a u-turn at this junction. Why didn't they just come out of the side street, cross straight over the nullah and turn left?

MrB

Greetings:
It could be Nam Cheong Street, southwest of Lai Chi Kwok Road, looking southwest towards the sea, judging by two clues:
1. Most buildings on the southwest side of Lai Chi Kwok Road were at that time smaller than 4 storey tall.
2. The nullah (storm drainage ditch) had just about the same width opening at road surface. I remember in the early 1050s Nam Cheong Street was covered by venders stalls selling merchandise and I had an opportunity to peep down and into the ditch through a small opening at one of the stalls.

Permalink
Submitted by
Neighbour (not verified)
on
Sat, 09/15/2007 - 09:27

As far as I can remember, only Nam Cheong Street to the northeast of Lai Chi Kwok Road had its nullah occupied by merchants and their shops above it continuously almost all the way to Cheung Sar Wan Road. Though not definite, this photo appears to show these shops which would have forced the procession to make a detour.

A couple more observations:

  • The open section of the nullah is only one street-block long. Many of the sections of open nullah on the map are longer.
  • Tonkin street at that time was the limit of the reclamation, and so had see on one side, ie no nullah.

So that leaves us with:

  • Waterloo Road. Nathan Rd - Portland St, Portland St - Shanghai St, Shanghai St - Reclamation St, and Reclamation St - Canton Rd.
  • Soy Street. Portland St - Shanghai St, Shanghai St - Reclamation St, and Reclamation St - Canton Rd.
  • Nelson Street. Same pattern as Soy Street.
  • Argyle Street. Nathan Rd - Portland Street.
  • Nam Cheong Street. (note the name is shown as 'Nan Chang Street' in older documents). There are many sections with nullah:  Un Chau street - Fuk Wing St - Fuk Wa St - Cheung Sha Wan Rd - Ap Liu St - Yu Chau St - Ki Lung St - Tai Nan St - Lai Chi Kok Rd - Yee Kuk St - Hai Tan St.

The map also shows that some of the buildings facing the nullas have alleys behind them, while others have an alley between them at right-angles to the nullah. If we say the block on the far side of the road has an alley between the three-storey building on the left and the low building on the right, that cuts out most of the Nam Cheong St options, leaving:

  • Waterloo Road. Nathan Rd - Portland St, Portland St - Shanghai St, Shanghai St - Reclamation St, and Reclamation St - Canton Rd.
  • Soy Street. Portland St - Shanghai St, Shanghai St - Reclamation St, and Reclamation St - Canton Rd.
  • Nelson Street. Same pattern as Soy Street.
  • Argyle Street. Nathan Rd - Portland Street.
  • Nam Cheong Street. Fuk Wa St - Cheung Sha Wan Rd,  and Tai Nan St - Lai Chi Kok Rd.

MrB

Geoffrey says that Tim Ko was able to quickly identify this photo by the pale, roofless building near the top-right corner of the photo. That is the Yau Ma Tei Theatre, which was damaged and lost its roof during WWII.

So the road with the nullah is Waterloo Road, the bridge over the nullah in the foreground is Shanghai Street, and the bridge in the distance is Reclamation Street.