View in Hong-Kong - The Episcopal Church - The Goverment Palace and Hurd & Co.'s American Mercantile House - The Plaza in Foreground
Source: Getty 84.XO.1176.2
Date picture taken
1 Mar 1860
Gallery
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Comments
"Government Palace" ?
I am not quite sure where your photo caption was derived from but this is first time I have seen the former French Mission Building ( also occupied at one time by Augustine Heard & Co) being described as "Government Palace" . To my recollection , Hong Kong and other British colonies very much avoided calling officials' offices and residences "palaces". The church was also called ( and captioned on old photographs ) as St John's Cathedral ever since its consecration in 1852.
The photo caption comes from…
The caption comes from the photo itself - it can be seen on the Getty Museum website here. I think the government palace refers to the Governors Mansion on the right of the photo rather than the Heard & Co building.
The other photo in the collection of Hong Kong shows Dent's bungalow in Lan Kwai Fong - it is referred to as the French Admirals House so I suspect there was some French influence in the Captions as in French there are a number of "Palais de...." referring to government buildings.