New on Gwulo: 2025, week 21

What's new and updated on the Gwulo website:

General

• Readers' memories of:
  • Richard “Dick” HUGHES C.B.E. (aka "The Cardinal") [1906-1984]
     
  • Telegraph Bay Village in the 1970s & 80s
     
  • Replacing the Armed Forces' telephone cables in 1963
     
• A new wartime diary written by Andrew Salmon is being added to Gwulo. The latest entry to be added is from 25 September 1942:
  • ... after days of standing by, we were all paraded and addressed by a Lieutenant Wada through his interpreter, Niimori: "You are going to a pleasant land, where you will be well looked after. I will be in charge of you. Remember my face."
     
  • That statement was wrong in so many ways, as Salmon was one of the POWs who were about to board the Lisbon Maru.
     
• Old newspapers are valuable resources when researching history. The HK Public Library's MMIS has been a good tool for reading old Hong Kong newspapers online but it has recently been discontinued, so we're waiting to see how well its replacement works. As an alternative, here's another way to access the Overland China Mail.
   
• Flogging was the harshest corporal punishment given to prisoners in colonial Hong Kong. On a recent visit to the National Archives I stumbled upon letters from Governor Hennessy to London discussing this, along with details of prison life in 1870s Hong Kong. Join me to explore them in this video:
  

   
   

• CityUnseen has been documenting the Heavy Draw-Off Fire Hydrants around Hong Kong. You can view them on a Map or a List
   
• Readers have helped solve two long-standing mysteries in recent weeks.
  • First, what happened to Ellen Olson after she got married? She seemed to just disappear. It turns out the family memory of her becoming Ellen Melcher was a red herring, sending us off on a fruitless search. Now it's been discovered she actually married a Mr Ritchie, and then a Mr Hilkers, and all has become clear.
     

  • Second, where was the building shown in the photo below? At first it was thought to have been above Happy Valley on Broadwood Road, then there was a time we thought it was in Kowloon, but now we believe it was along Wanchai Road.
     

    

     

• A bonus to receiving the BEM is that I also received an invitation to attend last Tuesday's garden party at Buckingham Palace. The sun shone, the palace gardens were beautiful, the military bands were tuneful, and there was cake! A happy day.
   

  

  
   

• Readers are looking for:
  • School photos for Saint Mary's School in 1935-1941, when the reader's mother and her sisters attended
     

  • Which year was this map drawn?
     

    

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Places

• Hong Kong Island
  • Gough Street steps [c.1845-????]
     
  • Origins of the name "Katoomba", for the house at 22 Magazine Gap Road
     
  • Peking Restaurant (東興樓) [????-????] in Causeway Bay
     
• Kowloon
  • Holiday Inn Harbour View / InterContinental Grand Stanford Hong Kong [1981- ]
     

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People & Organisations

• Lucy Maud BAIRD [1888-1978], nurse & missionary
   
• Stuart Braga's last three biographies complete the records of the thirteen Braga siblings:
  • Clement Albert BRAGA [1902-1972], English teacher
     
  • Noel BRAGA [1903-1979], Legco member & a director of the China Light & Power Company
     
  • James BRAGA [1906-1994], Baptist minister, Bible teacher and author
• Jill DOGGETT [1912-1999], journalist & social activist
   
• Ernest Francis FINCHER [1907-1941], HKVDC
   
• Interned at Stanley Camp:
  • Charlotte Mabel BIRD (née MAY, aka Charles / Birdie) [1905-1992], teacher
     
  • Catherine TEITELBAUM / TALBOT (née RAINE) [1877-????]
     

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Photos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Click to see all recently added photos.