Noel BRAGA [1903-1979]

Noel Braga
Company Secretary

Born, Macau, 6 December 1903
Died, 19 December 1979, Mount Pleasant Hospital, Southall, London, aged 76

Noel the sixth of nine brothers and four sisters, the children of José Pedro Braga and Olive Pauline Braga, was born in Macau but lived most of his life in Hong Kong. Noel was given the baptismal name Anna Noel to conform to the Catholic practice of using a saint’s name, but was always known as Noel. The priest thought that he was baptising a girl. The baptismal record in the Cathedral register reads in translation: ‘Bapt. Sé, 22 December 1903, Anna Noel Braga, leg. dau. of José Pedro Braga & Olive Pauline Pollard Braga.

The family moved to Hong Kong in 1906 where J.P. Braga became a prominent businessman and well-known community leader. In 1929 he was appointed to the Hong Kong Legislative Council, serving two terms until 1937. He was a director of the China Light & Power Company, an electricity undertaking in Hong Kong and Chairman of the Hongkong Engineering and Construction Co. His full-time business was a printery, in which several of his sons worked for a time, including Noel.

Originally Roman Catholic, the family became deeply divided when Olive converted in 1906 and became a member of the Christian Brethren, with most of the children following her. In his book Making Impressions, about the Braga Family ancestry, my cousin Stuart writes, “From about 1907 [the family] lived a double religious life, going to Mass on Sunday morning at the nearby Catholic Cathedral, and in the evening to the Gospel Meeting of the Brethren at the Gospel Hall, a little further away on Pedder Street …. At the Gospel Hall, the Braga family formed a substantial part of the congregation, which varied between twenty and thirty, often augmented by uniformed sailors from the ships of the Royal Navy’s China Station and soldiers from the garrison.”

Educated at St Joseph’s College as were all eight of his brothers, Noel was an outstanding student, coming first in his class. He was a prefect in his final year and was awarded the prestigious Belilios Scholarship. He completed his Matriculation in July 1918 and went on to the Hong Kong Technical Institute where he earned distinctions in each of the four years.

On leaving school, Noel joined his father’s printing business. By 1924, he was with Shewan, Tomes & Co., which managed several businesses, including the small but rapidly growing China Light & Power Company which supplied electricity to Kowloon and the New Territories. Seen as a very promising young man, he was employed by China Light from March 1925 on. He had a phenomenal memory and excellent clerical skills. He grew with the job, becoming the Company Secretary at the age of 21, a position he held until 1946, after the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong during the Second World War. A testimonial from China Light and Power Company written in 1946 by the Chairman, Lawrence Kadoorie, later Lord Kadoorie of Kowloon and the City of Westminster, referred to his fine qualities in glowing terms.

“Mr. Braga gave every satisfaction, being thoroughly reliable, hard-working and efficient. His experience has been wide and varied, as he was in complete charge of the  Secretarial Department of this large Public Utility Company. Mr. Braga's relations with the Directors were of the best and he was very popular with the members of the Company’s staff.”

During the 1920s, Noel became friendly with an English naval officer, Ernest Morris. The Royal Navy had a significant presence in Hong Kong, including HMS Ambrose, a submarine depot ship based in Hong Kong between 1920 to 1929. Whenever possible, Ernie, a keen member of the Christian Brethren, attended the Gospel Hall, where he met the Braga family. They would enjoy social outings together and so Ernie came to know the family well.

Soon after Noel joined China Light, Hong Kong was hit by industrial action and a General Strike in 1925 which crippled its economy. Several passenger ships were stranded in Hong Kong when their crews deserted to join the strike. This gave Noel the chance to travel. In July 1925 Noel and his eldest sister Jean joined the Canadian Pacific liner RMS Empress of Canada, Jean working as a waitress and Noel in the purser’s office.

Noel repeated the voyage in the same ship in May 1930, this time taking his mother; they reached Vancouver at the end of May. They visited and stayed with Christian friends before going on to Calgary and from there to Chicago where they met and stayed with his brother James at the Moody Bible Institute. James had enrolled there the previous year to train as a minister. Noel left his mother there and went on to Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec from where he embarked on the Empress of Australia for England.

Soon after arriving in Southampton he arranged to meet Ernie in Plymouth and had already booked a coach for the journey when he received a telegram saying that Ernie had to go to London where he invited Noel to meet his family. Noel was at once attracted to Marjory, Ernie’s sister. He wrote to his mother, “there was something about his youngest sister that appealed very strongly to me”. He was aged 26, while she was only 19. They exchanged correspondence for some months, but Marjory called off the friendship for two years. She did not want it to go further. Returning to Hong Kong, Noel found this separation hard and in the next two years encountered health problems which obliged him to spend some time in Japan, where he picked up a working knowledge of Japanese. This proved to be invaluable ten years later when the Japanese invaded Hong Kong.  

In 1934 Noel returned to England and made contact again with Marjory. A romance rapidly blossomed, documented in a remarkable series of letters published by Maurice Braga in his book Lasting Impressions. Noel and Marjory were married at Victoria Hall, Wandsworth, London, on 3 November 1934. They soon sailed for Hong Kong, arriving on 1 December to a great welcome from the Braga family. Noel’s father, J.P. Braga, wrote to his son Jack in Macau, “There was quite a family dinner to welcome the newly-weds. Marjory is quite a nice girl as far as I have been able to judge … I feel that Noel must be congratulated on the choice of his wife.”

Noel and Marjory settled into one of the houses that formed the Braga compound in Knutsford Terrace, Kowloon. In the next five years two children were born to them, Maurice in 1936 and Janyce in 1939. These were tranquil years in Hong Kong, even when war broke in Europe. However, 1940 saw a rapid change following the fall of France in June. Japan, where a militarist government was in power, immediately put pressure on French Indo-China. In case Hong Kong should be attacked, the British government quickly arranged for British women and children to be evacuated to Australia. Marjory and the children left  on 1 July after only three days’ notice in the liner Empress of Japan. Noel’s sister-in-law Nora Braga was on the same ship with her two children. On arrival in Manila, they were given free US Army accommodation, but they could stay in a hotel if their husbands paid for it. Noel and Hugh did this, so the two Braga sisters-in-law and their children had better accommodation. The hotel was more comfortable but less secure. Marjory lost everything in a burglary, and begged Noel to get her back to Hong Kong, and he was able to do this.  

Neither of them could have known that the following year Hong Kong would surrender to the invading Imperial Japanese Army. The invasion on 8 December 1941 took everyone by surprise. When the British army and police evacuated Kowloon on 11 December law and order broke down and widespread looting took place.  Noel’s brother Paul wrote in a letter to their brother James, on 22 October 1943. “The police abandoned [Kowloon] without any warning to the people. A reign of terror followed throughout the afternoon, that night and the following day, thousands of coolies, house-boys and workman-classes of Chinese were swarming everywhere … armed with choppers, bamboo poles and some with revolvers.”

That night a mob of looters attacked a house with a stout teak door close to a new office building which was the headquarters of the China Light and Power Co. Here most of the Braga family had taken refuge. Paul was among them. He wrote, “you can well imagine the scene of about sixty men, women and children, all desperately excited and scared, shouting, crying and each offering his or her own suggestion. Up till this moment as usual with Noel, he had kept more in the background than the others, but now he came forward with the only sensible idea, which was to bring new hope to us all. With his little knowledge of Japanese acquired in Japan a few years ago, he would go out into Nathan Road to look out for some Jap soldiers and bring them up. It was unanimously agreed that he should go with the Frenchman who owned the revolver, and they left at about 11.00 a.m. Hour after hour went by and there was no sign of either until about 3 o’clock when he turned up with a soldier but without the Frenchman. They were found by Jap soldiers who treated them with the greatest suspicion and removed them to some temporary station where they were questioned. Noel suggested that they might set up quarters of some sort in the China Light Bldg. as he felt that their being close by would keep the looters from returning that night. Finally, an officer agreed to send a soldier along to look the place over, but the Frenchman was kept as hostage. About five that evening 150 to 200 men occupied the C.L. Bldg. and for the present we knew we were safe from the looters.”  Noel’s courageous action had saved the whole family.

Although they were safe from looters, the next fortnight was a time of fear, as no-one knew what the Japanese might do. On Christmas Day the family gathered in Paul Braga’s house on Braga Circuit, Kowloon, for what would be their last meal together. Close by was a Japanese battery firing across the harbour on British positions, still holding out on Hong Kong island. They were in the midst of the war. Paul continued, “Nor did we leave our seats during the return shelling from British forts in Hongkong which brought direct hits on some of the Jap guns … It was the happiest and yet the gloomiest tiffin we ever had. During the fire and cross-fire we all sat still, but you could never imagine more laughter and talk from a ‘Xmas party when the guns were silent.” As darkness fell on that strangest of Christmas Days, the sound of gunfire on Hong Kong Island ceased and there was silence. “We knew what that meant”, said Marjory fifty years later. “Hong Kong had surrendered”.

The defeat was bitter. A white flag was raised over Government House as the victorious Japanese took over in triumph. All British civilians still in Hong Kong were interned. However, using Noel’s knowledge of Japanese, the Braga family were able to avoid internment, and were able to claim Portuguese citizenship. For some time Noel and his family remained in Hong Kong. Marjory later wrote to her mother in England, “we are allowed a ration of bread daily from the Portuguese centre, but we expect this to cease at any moment.” Conditions rapidly grew worse during 1942. Noel’s knowledge of Japanese was a great asset to him, as he was able to go to places where none of the others dared. He made five trips to Macau during 1942 before eventually taking his family across at the end of January 1943.

Upon their move to Macau they were able to take their piano and, concealed in it, the share registers and other vital records of the China Light & Power Company which Noel had saved from falling into the hands of the Japanese, realising that these documents would be crucial to the regeneration of the Company after the War. Had the documents been discovered during their journey Noel would certainly have been shot by the Japanese.

Noel and Marjory lived up to the reputation they had earned in many years of Christian discipleship at the Gospel Hall. Paul wrote of them appreciatively. During the fighting, Noel, ‘as might be expected, was the ‘willing horse’ during and after war (8-25 December) and was general peace-maker. Marji came through in a marvellous way – shouldered most of the heavy kitchen work”. Noel’s efforts in 1943 to get his mother and sister Mary still in Hong Kong to join them in Macau met with frustration. Paul, who saw what was happening, wrote of Noel’s attempt with a mixture of admiration and concern. At the end of the war, his mother described Noel in a few well chosen words: “Noel, whose life is a benediction to one and all.”

When the war ended Noel and Marjory and their family were repatriated to England and settled in Eastbourne with Marjory’s mother and where Maurice and Janyce were educated. They joined the local Plymouth Brethren community where Noel became a leading Elder. He obtained employment with Louis G. Ford Ltd, a firm of wholesale hardware merchants, as its Assistant Company Secretary, the founder and Chairman, Louis Ford, being also a member of the Plymouth Brethren.

In 1952 Noel accepted an invitation to join an American organisation, Christian Children`s Fund, Inc. helping to rehabilitate children orphaned during the Korean War. He went to Seoul as its Director and Marjory went with him. He established and organised several relief centres in South Korea until 1958 when he left to become Secretary of the St John Ambulance Brigade in Hong Kong, There he and Marjory resumed the open house for servicemen and missionaries, hospitality they had begun in their early marriage before the War. Marjory also threw herself into the work of helping the founders of Peace Clinic, a Christian medical mission in Hong Kong. In 1960, while Noel was working with the St John Ambulance Brigade, she was employed by Shewan Tomes Ltd (where Noel had once worked) as a Manager’s Secretary until Noel retired in 1961.

They returned to the UK and settled in Hanwell, West London, joining the Dean Hall Assembly of Christian Brethren. Noel then tried to fulfil a lifelong ambition to become a lawyer. He joined the Middle Temple as a Bar student and passed his intermediate examinations with distinction. Unfortunately, he later developed a serious illness which prevented him from qualifying as a barrister. However, he was able to see his son Maurice qualify as a solicitor in 1959.

He took an active role in the welfare of his fellow students and retained a keen interest in the law until his death in 1979 following several years of declining health. When his health began to fail Janyce gave up her job as a schoolteacher in Hong Kong, retrained in London as a nurse, and came to live with her parents for the remainder of their lives. Noel and Marjory`s marriage of 45 years had held together despite the most trying ordeals of hardship and physical separation.

Maurice Braga (son), June 2022, revised by Maurice and by Stuart Braga (nephew), 4 June 2025.