C. M. S. Victoria Home and Orphanage (Girls) (Second location) [1902-1937]

Submitted by David on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 17:15
Current condition
Demolished / No longer exists
Date completed
(Day & Month are approximate.)
Date closed / demolished

This place popped up in a recent photo:

Annotated copy

I'd thought the building marked "C" might be the "Victoria Girls School", based on notes from the AAB. But a search for "Victoria Girls School" didn't turn up any other references.

Fortunately Mark Huang pointed me in the right direction:

I have a feeling that the "Victoria Girls School" you mentioned could be "half" of the fore-runner of Heep Yun School, the Victoria Home and Orphanage, a Church Mission Society establishment.  See the school's history on Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heep_Yunn_School#History

Searches for "Victoria Home" turned up several useful results. First I wanted to pin down the location. The Government Records Service returned two results, including:

HKRS58-1-69-38: PROPOSED EXTENSION TO K.I.L. 1116 - (VICTORIA HOME & ORPHANAGE)  16.04.1914 - 01.11.1927

So we're looking for Kowloon Inland Lot 1116. A UK National Archive Map (their ref: CO 700-Hong Kong and China22) to the rescue. It shows KIL 1116 covered the top of hill B in the photo above, including the building C.

The map above shows its location on a present-day map. Here is hill B on a map from 1902-3:

1903 Map of area around Ma Tau Wei

Next, what can we say about dates for the building?

The Home was operated by the Church Missionary Society or CMS. A history of the CMS published in 1916 includes this text:

Another development of the Centenary period [The CMS was founded in 1799, so that means around 1899] arose out of the cession to Great Britain of a small territory on the mainland, adding to the city of Kowloon (which was already British) an area comprising over 400 villages. [...] The Victoria Home, Miss Hamper's refuge for rescued girls, was moved from Hong Kong to Kowloon. Much good spiritual work has been done, both among the inmates of this Home, many of whom have been baptized, and in the district generally.

The New Territories were ceded in 1898. It would have taken some time for Miss Hamper to decide to move and then have the Home built, so I'll guess the start of 1901 as the date it was completed. ((Update: It opened in 1902, see comment below.))

An article in the Hong Kong Daily Press (2 Oct 1936, page 7) says how the new Victoria Home and Orphanage is under construction, and due to be completed next year. It says the Home had to move because the Government would resume its current site. I'll guess that happened when the new building was complete.

Corrections welcome!

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