Who were the family in these photos?

We've seen this group before - I used this photo of them in my latest book. From left to right we have Cedric, Maud, Father, Lewis, Mr Hosie, Mrs Duncan, and Annie. The photo is dated to 1 Jan 1916, and shows them taking a break from playing golf at Deepwater Bay.

I bought it on eBay as part of a bundle of this family's photos. Let's take a look at their other photos and see what else we can find out about them.
 

Living & working

In the book I'd identified the men in the group as working for the Dock Company at Hung Hom, as Jurors Lists from that time show both Mr Hosie and Mr Duncan were working there. None of the other photos show men at work, but several show people in front of homes.

Many of the Dock Company's men lived in company accommodation on the site - did the family live there too? Here's a photo from a different source that shows the Company's quarters along Bulkeley Street in Hung Hom.

 

One of the family's photos shows Annie in front of a building that is certainly very solid, but isn't an exact match for the quarters shown above:

Then there are several photos taken in front of a third style of building. The buildings in the previous two photos have all-stone balustrades around their terraces and verandas, but this third building uses decorated ironwork.

 

 

It's hard to know where those two were taken, but at last this photo of Cedric has signs of a dockyard. 

On the left of the photo there is a ship in the background. It is at a very low level, suggesting it was in a dry dock.

The photo was taken during the First World War, explaining Cedric's dressing up as a young soldier. His handwritten note, 'From votre frere Cedric' suggests he was learning French (votre frere = your brother), and was sending this to a brother or sister living overseas.

The last photo of this building also has a clear dockyard connection, as the two boys are sitting on a mooring bollard at the corner of a sea wall.

Does anyone recognise whether the second and third buildings also belonged to the dockyard at Hung Hom?
 

On the water

We get a photo of 'father's launch' K3, and a close-up of its interior.

 

It shows Lewis in the background, then L-R are Mrs Morris, Mrs Duncan, and Annie, then in the front row are Maud, Mr Duncan, and Mr Morris.

The launch also had its own wooden rowing boat, the Maud.

 

Sports

Apart from playing golf, there are also several photos of the family playing tennis on different occasions. (Or at least, photos of them dressed to play tennis!)

Standing L-R are Mr Morris, Mr Cartwright, and Father. Annie, Mrs Morris, Mrs Duncan and Maud are sitting on chairs, and Lewis and Cedric are sitting on the ground.

 

 

This last photo shows there was occasionally some exercise involved! The match was Mrs Richardson & Father vs. Mr Richardson & Annie, but it is the photo's background that is more interesting to me.

In the distance in the upper centre of the scene there is a large wall with dark rectangles along its top. I remember seeing a similar wall in Kowloon Park. It is easily missed, but if you look to your right just before leaving the park to cross the footbridge to Hong Kong China City, you'll see a small section of wall with rectangles cut into it near the top.

That's part of the original wall around the Kowloon West Battery. It had loopholes cut into it for British soldiers to fire their rifles through. (If you walk up the steps by that wall you'll come to the Kowloon Park Discovery Playground. It is built on the site of the battery, and the old gun emplacements are still clear to see.)

There were also a Kowloon East Battery and a Kowloon Dock Battery, both built on the headland at Hung Hom near to the dockyard. I think it's the wall of Kowloon Dock Battery that we can see behind the tennis court.

The other clue is on the right of the photo. Just outside the tennis court wall there is a tall post with a dark, diamond shape attached to it. That showed ships where telegraphic cables ran across the harbour between Kowloon and Hong Kong, and alerted them not to drop their anchors there in case they damaged the cables. We know that posts like these were on the Hung Hom peninsula, just next to the dockyard.

With all the connections to Hung Hom I feel pretty confident that father worked for the dockyard, but ...
 

What was father's name?

Here are the clues I can see:

• He worked for the Dock Company and must have been a senior member of the staff if he had his own launch. (Though it was K3 not K1, so he probably wasn't the most senior.)
• There is no mention of 'Mother'.
• Father looks pretty old to have sons as young as Cedric and Lewis, so either he had a younger / second wife (Annie or Maud?), or the boys are his grandsons or other relatives.
• The photo of the tennis match has the note 'To Herbert from Father', of the mooring bollard says 'To Flo with love from Annie', and of Maud on the tennis court says 'To Flo, Herbert & Denis'. Were they more children away at boarding school, or was Herbert married to Flo with a son Denis?
• Family members include Annie, Cedric, Denis, Flo, Herbert, Lewis, and Maud.

Maybe some of Gwulo's experts at tracing family trees can find the pattern that links those names?

Meanwhile, I'll turn to the 1917 Jurors List, as Father should be one of the names listed there. 

1. I searched the list for all people giving Dock Co. or Dock Company as their employer. Found 89 names.
2. Deleted any people with junior positions, i.e. Assistant, Blacksmith, Boatswain, Boilermaker, Clerk, Engineer (but kept Superintendent Engineer), Gateman, Shipbuilder (but keep Superintendent Shipbuilder), Storekeeper, Timekeeper. 33 names left.
3. Deleted Mr Duncan and Mr Hosie, as they're shown in photos with father. 31 names left.
4. Look at any Special Jurors, as they're usually the senior men in a company. There are two:
   1. Robert Morton Dyer, Chief Manager
      • As far as I can tell he had no children, as his will was made out to his brothers and sisters (Carl Smith Card 96765).
   2. Hedley Graham White, Shipwright
      • He looked possible initially as he married an Annie Peacock in Shanghai in 1907 (CS Card 151937). But they had a son in 1913 (CS Card 152059) and as I don't see a 3-4 year-old in the photos I've counted him out too.

Unfortunately, I still haven't managed to pin down the family name of this group. I'll include the list of the remaining 29 names at the bottom of this page, and hopefully Google will send us someone who recognises the names and / or photos.
 

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Further reading:

• You'll find the photo of the family at the Deepwater Bay golf course and its stories on pages 48-53 of Volume 5 of Old Hong Kong Photos and The tales They Tell
   
• More photos of tennis in Hong Kong
   
• 1917 Jurors List
   
• Physical sites around Hong Kong:
  • Hong Kong, Kowloon & Whampoa Dockyards at Hung Hom
     
  • Kowloon Dock Battery [c.1880-c.1905]
     
  • Kowloon East Battery, Hung Hom [1890-????]
     
  • Kowloon West Battery, Tsim Sha Tsui [c.1880- ]
     
  • Prohibited anchorage area - telegraphic cable reserve [1907-1924] - the reason for that diamond-shaped sign
     

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Bonus photos:

The family travelled to and from the UK via the Suez Canal, and took these photos.

 

 

 

The last photo shows graffiti on the side of the canal, 'Here we are again', and the names London and Paris on the two huts!
 

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Potential names for 'Father' from the 1917 Jurors List

If you can eliminate any of these people (e.g. not married, wrong age, etc.), please leave a comment below.

	Family name	Given name(s)	Occupation	Reason
1	Allan	John Niven Rodger	Draughtsman
2	Atkinson	Clark	Shipwright
3	Brown	Wilson	Foreman Joiner
4	Brown	James	Joiner
5	Coleman	Frederick Charles	Electrician	Photo shows he wasn't 'father', see https://gwulo.com/media/28851
6	Crispin	Charles	Foreman Shipwright
7	Crossan	Thomas	Shipwright
8	Davison	William	Foreman Shipwright
9	Dick	James Gold	Sawmiller
10	Ford	William Fanlkner	Harbour Foreman Engineer
11	Garraway	James Graham	Foreman Engineer
12	Graham	William James	Supt. Shipbuilder
13	Gray	Samuel	Foreman Turner
14	Henderson	George	Shipwright
15	Keith	David	Shipwright
16	Lambert	William Osborne	Draughtsman
17	Martin	James	Draughtsman
18	McIntosh	James Stewart	Draughtsman
19	Neave	Thomas	Superintendent Engineer	Children's names don't match, see https://gwulo.com/node/39268
20	Neilson	Donald McLaren	Foreman Boilermaker
21	Nicholson	Alfred	Superintendent Engineer
22	Oliver	Peter	Moulder
23	Ramsay	Joseph Marshall	Supt Shipbuilder
24	Scott	Harry Hodge	Draughtsman
25	Steele	David	Shipwright
26	Taylor	William	Pattern-maker
27	Tucker	Alfred	Head Watchman
28	Tulip	Wilfred	Draughtsman
29	Watson	James	Master, “David Gillies”