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.
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.
Comments
I've added a marker at the
I've added a marker at the location of IL 2040 as shown at https://www.hkmapservice.gov.hk/OneStopSystem/map-search#
Perfection Place - origin of name?
Does anyone have any idea how the name "Perfection Place" originated?
Perfection Place
Hi Jill, I've just been doing random searches and one led back to an old Gwulo posting, that we both contributed to. It was the "Kot Tang Shi" and "So Tang Shi" link. I was looking at the map insert and I see this location was quite close to Moreton Terrace.
My original discovery of Kot Choy was due to a letter involving the sale of a property located at 4 Moreton Terrace. It was owned by Kot Choy! It was sold in 1937 and the proceeds were disbursed in 1941. At that time I had no idea of the relationship of Kot Choy to my family. The coincidence in the similarity of the two names and now the site locations being so close? The Moreton Terrace developement I think began about 1925. There's not much info on it.
Anyway, I trust all is well with you.
Regards, Brian
Seeking Perfection Place (again)
Hi Brian, you remind me that I have let my search for Perfection Place go cold. I'm sure that there are Gwulo historians who could maybe dig out an old map of the Tai Hang area in which it figures. I'd be very grateful! I.L. 2040 is the key. Was it the former name of Warren Street? I had thought that Warren Street was built from scratch to house the company workers.
I had never heard of Kot Choy before you mentioned him. I don't know much about the friendships or business connections of the Olsons, but Hong Kong is a small place.