Perfection Place 1-5, I. L. 2040 [????- ]

Submitted by jill on Wed, 05/26/2021 - 01:44
Current condition
Unknown

I’m intrigued by a deleted entry in the 1916-17 Rate Book that includes 1-5 Perfection Place among the jointly owned properties of my grandfather, C.E. Warren and his partner/brother-in-law, John Olson jnr. No. 1 Perfection Place is given as a “Dwelling” but has never been mentioned as an address for any of the members of the Warren or Olson family by my predecessors who trawled the accessible records to establish our joint family histories.

The following link shows a sketch of typical house in Perfection Place. The text implies that the houses were residential and typically owned by well off families.

https://www.hkmemory.hk/MHK/collections/kong_kai_ming/All_Items/Images/201106/t20110614_38667.html?f=classinfo&cp=1980%E5%B9%B4%E4%BB%A3&ep=1980s&path=/MHK/collections/kong_kai_ming/All_Items/8709/8713/index_3.html

In the early years, the rich who had a big family usually bought a large piece of land and built a house there, calling it a "terrace" (meaning a terrace on the hillside). They did so because of tradition (the tradition of having a big family) and security (a wall could be built around the house, and also a gate tower and a corner tower to guard against thieves). These buildings were usually western in style. The terrace as shown in the painting does not exist any more.

I can only find entries for nos. 2 and 3 Perfection Place in the jury lists and not until 1935 and 1936; namely for the Oji Paper Company and William C. Jack Co. Ltd. Jacks was a large engineering company that undertook similar projects to C.E. Warren & Co.

Perfection Place has not been given as the address of the previous Warren factory that moved to Bowrington at the end of 1910. I should be interested to know if Perfection Place 1-5 crops up in any other context around this date. The name of the new owner, So Tang Shi, is similar (but not identical) to the “Kot Tang Shi” mentioned by seemex as a possible ancestor, but the possibly relevant 1913 Carl Smith card for that name is missing.

Apologies that I have no idea how to place a marker correctly on the map. I hope the link and I.L. no will help.

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