The Frank Fischbeck Collection Corrections Thread

Submitted by CityUnseen on

I've just been in touch with the architecture librarian at HKU Libraries and she endorsed me starting this thread. HKU Library acquired the Frank Fischbeck Collection in 2019, and having spent quite a lot of time looking through these photos, I've found that quite a lot of the metadata is wrong. Wrong dates, wrong locations. I'm by no means a history expert, so I can often tell that a label is wrong but not know how it should be corrected. I'm quite sure that Gwulo's photo sleuths would be brilliant at it. 

If you would like to help improve the accuracy of the Frank Fischbeck Collection, look through the archive here. 

https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/fischbeck

The most relevant categories are Old Hong Kong and Hong Kong: the Classic Age.

If you spot a photo with an incorrect label, please

  1. Post the link to the photo.
  2. Please include the accession number (not to be confused with the shelf number). For example, this photo of Battery Path in the 1930s has the accession number ff_asg_00324.
  3. Explain how the label should be corrected. 

 

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread and will periodically pass your findings along to the librarian. If I spot a photo that looks off but can't figure it out myself, I'll post it here too. 

Disclosure: City Unseen (www.cityunseen.hk) is an internal program of the WYNG Foundation, which jointly shares copyright to the Fischbeck collection with HKU Libraries. I am not affiliated with HKU Libraries. 

 

 

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I'll start with one. This photo says it is Pedder Street in the 1920s, but the date is wrong.

Accession number: ff_asg_00180

  1. The cars don't look right for the 1920s.
  2. The tyre on the back of the car says "Star Taxi" which according to Google was founded in the 1930s.
  3. Other photos of Pedder Street in the 20s have telephone poles and this one doesn't.
  4. There's a traffic light in the road I'm pretty sure those didn't exist in HK in the 20s. 

 

When was this photo taken? 

At the junction of DesVoeux Road and Pedder Street, a traffic light can be seen. This likely is "EVA", an automated traffic signal installed in August 1934.  Therefore, the photo is likely from the second half of the 1930s.

This one's driving me crazy. The label says "beyond Central District" but I think it's not in Hong Kong at all. The architectural style looks wrong, I don't recognize that stripy colonial building in the background, and there are way more bicycles than I've ever seen in an old photo of Hong Kong. Can anyone place or date this? 

Accession number: ff_asg_00178

I think it might be Singapore. "Lity & Co." returns a search result for a company registration in Singapore in the 1960s-70s. Does anyone know what that colonial building is?  

Photo taken in Singapore at junction of North Bridge Road and Hock Lam Street. Looking at the photo, likely 1950s.

Similar photo: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/vol-7/issue-3/oct-dec-2011/singapore-indian-business-communities/ but incorrect decade. Should be 1950s as noted: https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/photographs/record-details/b31656ba-1162-11e3-83d5-0050568939ad

Location: https://johorkaki.blogspot.com/2020/08/hock-lam-street-forever-lost-food-haven.html

Colonial building: Central Fire Station on Hill Street

 

 

There are these two pictures that claim to show troops parading down Nathan Road after the war in the 1940s. This is definitely wrong, those tall buildings, lampposts and railings didn't exist in the 1940s. They look 1970s or 1980s. Do you know when there was a parade with armoured vehicles like this? 

ff_asg_00273

ff_asg_00272

I also think that the photo is from the 1890s. Unfortunately, I could not find any adverts in Hong Kong Newspapers except for "Yung Kee & Co". But this company had their shop at 25 Lindhurst Terrace in 1891 and 1892.

Nevertheless, I also think the date is pre-1900. Compare this photo, dated to 1890. The sign "A. Hahn" can be seen on both photos. In the 1890 photo we still see clothing hung out for drying, in the other one none. Maybe this hints to the second half of the 1890s. 

Amazing! How did you find the exact spot? I've emailed all suggestions so far to HKU library, and they have corrected the captions or will do so soon. 

I think I have narrowed the Nathan Road military parade pictures down to the late 1960s or 1970s based on the streetlights. They look like the ones in these other photos from this period. Here, and here, and here. By the 1980s, they'd changed to less curvilinear ones like this. 

Based on the people calmly milling about in the background, I'm guessing it's a Queen's birthday parade like in these photos in 1974. Also this one. 

I am otherwise at a loss. Is anyone here good at identifying uniforms? This is entirely out of my wheelhouse and I can't even tell if they're military or police. The man in white looks like he might be wearing a St John's Ambulance uniform like in the second photo on this website. 

 

Yes, very likely during the Queen's Birthday Parade. The photos were taken at the junction of Nathan Road and Middle Road.

Look up Shui Hing House and Alpha House on Gwulo. Looks like construction work is being carried out.

Hi There,

Those looked like Gurkhas, with their British Officers.  In one of the photos there seemed to be a Policeman at the right edge in summer uniform.   I believe the Policce changed their uniform altogether in late 1970's thus no more shorts and knee high socks.

T

Thanks, tngan. The Gurkhas didn't occur to me, but that's how little I know about uniforms. Also thanks for placing the location, moddsey. I was having trouble figuring out what the building was.

This one is labeled as people queuing for water in the 1950s, but it doesn't look right. 

Accession number: ff_dbw_00544 

  • Those clothes look too old-fashioned
  • Wooden buckets in the 1950s?
  • Who is that man with the huge moustache and the tall helmet? That does not look like a Hong Kong police officer. 

Realy good work. I've spotted some incorrectly identified places and people for some of the non-Hong Kong images in the Frank Fischbeck Collection at HKU Libraries. Here are suggested amends ...

ff_gp_00016 Bridge and temple at Jiading (Kading), Shanghai.

ff_asg_00408 Hongkew Market, Shanghai.

ff_dc_01420 Guangzhou (Canton).

ff_dc_01417 Yonghe Temple (雍和宮) ‘The Lama Temple’, Beijing.

srh_p_00207 Hester Hart (Lady Hart, wife of Sir Robert Hart).

srh_p_00363 Hester Hart (Lady Hart, wife of Sir Robert Hart).

srh_p_00593 Sir Robert Hart.

srh_p_00656 Sir Robert Hart.

srh_p_00670 P&O buildings, Aden, Yemen.

srh_p_00662 Seventeen-Arch Bridge (Shiqikong Qiao 十七孔橋), Summer Palace (頤和園), Beijing.

srh_p_00663 Seventeen-Arch Bridge (Shiqikong Qiao 十七孔橋), Summer Palace (頤和園), Beijing.

ff_rb_05011 Dagaoxuan Hall or Temple (大高玄殿), Beijing.

ff_rb_04989 West Lake (西湖), Hangzhou (杭州).


ff_gp_00011 Bodies of executed looters or rioters, Peking Mutiny, lying in the road after their execution in Beijing, 1912

ff_gp_00008 Probably execution of a suspected Boxer, c.1900.

ff_gp_00010 Public torture and execution (lingchi), c.1880-1911.