1909 Panorama of Hong Kong Island from the harbour

David,

There's a small puzzle. At c.16:34, not long after you've left Fenwick Shipyard but before you get to the Sisters of St Paul, I suspect something is invisible (not surprising given the angle at which Praya East is being viewed), or perhaps didn't survive the composition of the panorama.

On 28 April 1909, on Marine Lot 295 on the corner of the new-ish Fenwick St and Praya East, which was successively Nos 8, 9 and finally 21 Praya East, Sir Frederick Lugard  laid the foundation stone for the new Seamen's Institute. It was completed in 14 months, and opened for business on 23 May 1910 by Sir Henry May. 

It was quite a large and handsome three storey building of seven bays "in the style of the Flemish Renaissance" (there's a 1915 photo of it in my Strong to Save (City Uni of HK Press, 2017), in the block of illustrations between pp.288 & 289; the narrative of the construction etc. is pp.98-101). It accordingly seems to me, given your 1909 dating, that between 16:20 and 16:40 something should perhaps be visible of the building site. Just a gap if the image was taken before April, then progressively more structure as the year wore on.

Your identification of the USS Helena is possible, though it could be her sister ship the Wilmington, which was in HK, for example, in February 1908 (China Mail, 24 Feb) and again in Sept 1901 (HK Telegraph, 30 Sept). Both were part of the South China and Yangzi patrols c.1906-1916 (both ships were out of commission 1904-1906). It would help to identify what looks like a second, very much smaller USN vessel to the right. I suspect it was one of the captured Spanish gunboats/patrol craft (one of the Albay, Alvarado, Arayat, Calamianes, Callao, Ectano, Leyte, Manileno, Mariveles, Mindoro, Pampanga, Panay, Paragua, Quiros, Samar, Sandoval, and Villalobos), though the newspapers for 1909 seem silent on the presence of two USN ships - maybe I haven't looked hard enough.

Anyway, fascinating photo.

Best,

StephenD

Much the most intriguing bit for me is the 'unknown' ship just before the photo ends.

It is clearly a warship (I suspect just within the Man of War Anchorage), and a fairly new one too. It has (probably) Wasteney-Smith pattern stockless anchors (or close variants) in hawse pipes on each bow of the then fashionable ram configuration (all down to a misinterpretation of the Battle of Lissa). Only British naval ships built post 1900 had been built with stockless anchors (largely as a result of RN trials 1885-1900), and most other navies rather took the Brit lead on such stuff...though not always by any means. Hence the conclusion that this is a fairly modern ship.

There is a residual figurehead decorating the bow - a short-lived substitute for a full figurehead, usually styled a 'bow decoration' - adopted from c.1895 through until the whole game was abandoned before the beginning of WW1. The resolution at max zoom isn't good enough to identify detail, but it conforms to doyen (and strongly HK connected) David Pulvertaft's description of the most usual style, "the royal arms in a cartouche with carved scrollwork flowing back on each side of the bow" (Figureheads of the Royal Navy, Barnsley: Seaforth, 2011, p.197).

All one can say here is that what's in the cartouche is not the arms of Britain's royalty and I am pretty sure the ship is not British. I've looked at such examples of German, Italian, Austro-Hungarian, Portuguese, Imperial Chinese and Japanese warships of the period as I can find, all of which sported bow decorations. There are family resemblances, but no 'ahah' moment. I'd like to believe it to be the Portuguese unprotected cruiser Adamastor, which gave its name to Adamastor Rock between Cheung Chau and Lantao after it had hit it, very likely as a result of an RHKYC member in the yacht Erin insisting that power gave way to sail. Unfortunately between 1908 and 1911 the ship was not in HK.

That noted, when the Adamastor hit the rock, she was assisted by the Portuguese Navy gunboat Patria. Is the Patria the quarry? She was launched in 1903 and completed in 1905, coming out to the Macau station in 1908, where she stayed until she was sold to the Chinese Navy in 1930, becoming the gunboat Fuyu (富裕 ) in 1931 (and sunk by Japanese aircraft in Guangzhou in 1937). In general some things fit well. The ship in the image is pretty small, and the Patria was just 750 tons full load and 63m loa. The open bridge is very small - maybe room for three or four people if they don't wave their arms around too much? But, sadly, the Patria didn't have stockless anchors, so the search continues.

The officer of the forecastle's spotting platforms for coming to a mooring or anchor are both lowered, so I suspect the ship hasn't long been moored or is preparing to depart. The forecastle awning has either just been spread or will be struck once everything is ready for slipping the mooring. There's a mooring buoy hauled close up on the port bow aft of the spotting platform. Not sure why - it'll be something to do with the chain coming up and in over the port bow just abaft the anchor, so either connecting things up or getting everything ready to slip.

Maybe someone else has some better ideas?

Best,

StephenD

Stephen,

Thanks for the extra information about the ships in the photo. I can't add anything there, but can help with the Seamen's Institute. Here's a view of that building a few years later:

Looking right from the institute we see two gables of a group of single-storey buildings, and then the entrance to Li Chit Street. There are two more gables out of sight to the right.

Back to the panorama video, and at 16:35 the four gables are visible just right of centre. The site for the Seamen's Institute is left of them. The site isn't very clear to see, but it looks to be either empty or just have some sort of sheds on it.

Regards, David

David - thanks much. Not sure about it all. Your photo is the same as the 1915 (firm date as with Moddsey) image in my book. I haven't a clue where Li Chit St may have been, the only streets east of the Institute location I can find on contemporary maps being Ship St., then Tai Wong St, then Tai Wong Lane, then Spring Garden Lane. Going westward from ML295 (the site of the Institute), which stands on the west side of the Praya Gresson St (my error - Gresson St's post 1930 reclamation extension is Fenwick St) junction, we have what was at the time an unnamed street, today Anton St, on the east, Praya corner of which stood the French convent. So, where Li Chit St may have been I don't know, though today there is a Lun Fat St between Gresson St and Ship St.

The new Institute was built just two lots (MLs 24 & 25) east of the French Convent, which occupied a lot (ML23) with the same frontage as MLs 24 and 25 combined. In short, in 1909 is the date, then preparations for the new Institute should be visible immediately to the east of the 10 bay building (which must occupy most of MLs 24 & 25) that lies to the east of what you identify as the French Convent.

I think, therefore, that in writing about the Institute, and as I noted in passing, I was making a vague gesticulation towards the issue of dating. Clearly, with the institute opening for biz in early 1910 and the foundation stone being laid in April 1909, some sort of a gap should be visible both for the building and, more to the point, for Gresson St on its east side, which was fully open before 1909.

The street had emerged because originally there had been just one lot ML29, which straddled the area of where the street would be driven through. But the consortium that owned ML29 (the HK Land Investment Co.) had split ML29 into MLs 295, 295, inland 1797 and 1798 on the west (with 1798 on Queen's Rd) and 1799 and 1780 on the east (with 1799 on Queen's Rd), with the new Gresson St dividing the six new lots. The new layout was certainly established by 1908, because in the 1908 Institute report, the Rev France could state that the a site for the new premises had already been purchased and that construction would soon begin.

The key here is the planning of the new institute, which had begun when it was clear in 1905 that what proved to be the temporary premises at Nos 72 and 73 Praya East were indeed going to be so. New premises had accordingly been promised on the new, planned reclamation to seaward of the Praya. That reclamation didn't happen because the developers (Chater & Modi) backed off as early as 1905 and, instead, had decided to fit the mission into ML29...which they did by dividing ML29 into the six sub-lots noted above, and driving Gresson St through the middle of them - well in time to deal with the end of the three year lease on the Institute's temporary premises, which was up in 1908.

Hence my thought that perhaps the image was perhaps taken a bit earlier than 1909.

Best,

StephenD 

I'm quite sure that the date is 1909 and not earlier. When I posted a timeline of the construction of the General Post Office,  the entry for 1909 refers: 
The whole of the walls of the building, with the exception of those of the Clock Tower, were practically built to the required height.
A photo, attributed to this year (copped from this panorama), shows the building at the final height, but still behind scaffolds. The building looks the same as on David's 1909 panorama.

A closer look on both panoramas reveals the fact that they are identical regarding the central part. However, the one posted by David is much wider and has a more exciting history, and a thrilling story about it's reconstruction. Thank you for showing this process to us.