Thank you to Janet Hayes for these photos taken in Hong Kong in 1897 (click any photo to see a larger copy and more information):
The photos originally belonged to Janet's mother. Janet writes:
When I spoke to my mother via Skype the other day, I asked her where they got the album. Apparently my dad found it in a small bookshop in Brighton when they were there on home leave many, many years ago. The last time that my dad was in England was in 1961, when they dropped me off in boarding school. Mum wasn't sure if that was when he found the book or a prior home leave.
I've seen other copies of these photos in a visit to the UK's National Archive. They come from an album entitled "Sixty Diamond Jubilee Pictures of Hongkong" (UKNA ref: CO 1069-450). The photos were taken by R C Hurley, and the album was published to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. I've used the captions from that album as the captions to the photos above.
Janet's family have been very generous in sharing their photos and memories with us. Janet's mother is Mabel Large (nee Redwood), and you can read her wartime experiences at http://gwulo.com/node/9569. Then Janet's aunt is Barbara Anslow (nee Redwood), who has written about her childhood in Hong Kong the 1920s (http://gwulo.com/node/17419), and given us the contents of the diary she kept through internment at Stanley Camp in WW2 (http://gwulo.com/node/9710).
Do you have any old photos of Hong Kong you can share with us? It's easy to upload them to the website, just click: http://gwulo.com/atom/add/image
Regards, David