New on Gwulo: 2022, week 34

The Gwulo newsletter returns! The website upgrade is mostly done, and our summer vacation is over, so it's time to start sending out the regular newsletters again.

As usual, the website quietened down over the summer, but there are still plenty of new pages and updates to explore.

 

General
 

• Readers are looking for any information about:
   
  • Japanese postboxes in Hong Kong: Aaron has found the locations of two postboxes that were erected during the Japanese occupation, and asks if anyone has photos that show them.
     
  • Did Hong Kong have any kind of  telephone directories between 1925 and 1938?
     
• New events on timelines, with notes and photos
   
  • 1889 The great rainstorm
     
  • 1961 Princess Alexandra visits Hong Kong
     
• Pre-war locomotives
   
  • CW Yip notes this photo is "... a very rare record of a Pacific type 4-6-2 locomotive of Canton-Kowloon Railway Chinese Section(CKR)".

    

     

• Book review: More than 1001 Days and Nights of Hong Kong Internment. A Personal Narrative.
   
  • Written by the late Sir Chaloner Grenville Alabaster, Hong Kong's Attorney General, it is his account of his experiences in wartime Hong Kong.
    It's an easy read, and though it covers several important themes I hadn't read about before, it is also chock full of the people he met, both in and out of Stanley Camp. His senior roles in government, the legal profession, and the local Freemasons, meant he was in contact with a lot of different people. 
    The book adds a lot of detail to our knowledge, both of life in Camp, and of the the senior members of government in the first months of 1942 when they were interned in Prince's Building. 
    I've written a more detailed review for readers who are interested in these topics.
     (I read this book while I was in quarantine after returning to Hong Kong. The hotel put me in room 1942, which I took to be an auspicious sign!)
     
• An in-depth interview about Gwulo
   
  • Earlier this year I enjoyed being interviewed by Rubin Verebes of the Beat asia. The resulting article was published in June: Meet David Bellis, Founder of Gwulo, Hong Kong's Largest Online Historical Archive.
     
• Upgrade update
   
  • After testing out the upgraded web server on its own domain and with a small audience over the summer, the upgraded server is now hosting the main site. Please visit Gwulo.com to take a look.
     
• Gwulo's books in local bookstores
   
  • The new Lion's Ink Bookstore has kindly agreed to carry Gwulo's books. They focus on books about Hong Kong history, so I'm very pleased to be on their shelves. The store is in the CC Wu Building, 302-8 Hennessy Road, and opens daily from 12-8pm.
     
• SPAM alert
   
  • A few days ago I received an official-looking spam email message, that at first glance was quite believable. It had the subject EMAIL VERIFICATION, was apparently sent from admin@gwulo.com, and told me to "please validate your  david@gwulo.com address as we are going through new server upgrade". Below that was a button marked 'CLICK HERE TO VALIDATE', which would no doubt lead to something bad happening. If you get any messages like this, please delete them straight away.
     

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Places
 

• Shop Houses
   
  • Phil has been tidying up our pages about Hong Kong's shop houses, though unfortunately that often means updating a page to note that another one has been demolished. You can see which shop houses are still standing, and those where all that remains is a lonely pillar.

    

     

• Hong Kong
   
  • Apricot Flower Restaurant 杏花樓 [1846-1930], a famous early restaurant
     
  • Malaria Prevention Store, Deep Water Bay [????- ]
     
  • How Sands Street in Kennedy Town got its name
     
• Kowloon
   
  • Chatham and Princess Margaret flyovers [1969- ]
     
  • Chatham Road petrol station [????-1968]
     
  • Ho Man Tin rail depot 何文田車廠 [1922-1968]
     
  • Honolulu Restaurant and Bar [????- ], TST
     
  • Malaria Prevention Store, Choi Shek Lane [????- ]
     
  • Wiltshire Road, Kowloon Tong [????- ]
     
• New Territories & Islands
   
  • Dragon Garden [1963- ], near Sham Tseng
     

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People
 

• Stanley Camp internees:
   
  • Robert James ASHBY [1904-????], prison officer
     
  • Leon BLUMENTHAL [1916-1991], prison officer
     
  • S T DOUGHTY [c.1892-????], mechanical engineer
     
  • Frank Hastings FISHER [c.1890-????], employee of British American Tobacco Co.
     
  • Wilfred LITTLER [c.1906-????], engineer
     
  • R S W PATERSON [c.1897-????], Public Works Dept.
     
  • George WOODWARD [1906-????]. It isn't yet clear whether he was a prison officer or a police officer.
     
• POWs
   
  • Kenneth S ROBERTSON [????-????], HKVDC
     
  • Richard John VERNALL [1901-1956], HKRNVR
     
• Other
   
  • Abdool Razak MADAR [1842-1900], civil servant and property owner
     
  • Rosa Ross notes her father Marcus de Carvalho is shown in this photo. Can readers add any more names?
    

    

     

  • John STEWARD [c.1822-1877], licensed victualler
     
  • Kingsley Frank WOODWARD [1897-1929], killed by pirates.
     
  • Francis Richard ZIMMERN [1912-????]

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Photos
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Click to see all recently added photos.