Annual reports, Public Works Department

These are a good source of information about anything related to government works: reclamations, lighting, government buildings, etc.

From around 1898 onwards, they also include a brief mention of major private construction projects completed and underway.

Hong Kong University's digital collections include scanned copies of many years' reports:

• 1879-83 and 1908-39: You can find copies online at the old HKGRO website. That site's document search isn't always accurate (not surprising, as the documents are old), so you'll often need to read through them to check if what you're interested in is present. To find a report for a specific year I usually go to the Table of Contents, click on the year in the 'Administrative Reports' column, then look for 'Public Works' in that year's list of documents. Note that in some years there may be more than one entry, e.g.  in 1912 there is '5 Public Works', which is a brief summary, and 'P Public Works', which is the full report.
   
• 1913, 1930-1976: These are available in the new HKGRO website at DigitalRepository@HKUL > Collections > Hong Kong Government Reports Online > Other Government Publications > 'Hong Kong. Public Works Department. Annual departmental report'.

To save work for future searches, I've started typing out relevant sections here as I use them. Please see the linked pages below. If you can add any text, please leave a comment on the relevant year's page with the extra text.