First Hong Kong Post Office [1841-????]

The date of formation of the Hong Kong Post Office can be considered as being August 1841. This is evidenced by Thomas Fitzgibbon’s notice of 25 August 1841 as “Clerk in charge of the Post Office, Hong Kong”.

 The public notice was eventually published in the Canton Register of 5 October 1841:

“All ship-masters and Commanders or others intrusted with mail packets to the address of the Postmaster at Hong Kong are required to deliver the same to the Harbour Master, or clerk in charge of the Post Office immediately on their arrival at that Port; or at the office of the Superintendent at Macao, on their arrival at Macao roads. All persons acting otherwise will render themselves liable to the fines and penalties by Act of Parliament established.”

Furthermore, in a letter dated 24 August 1841 from Alexander Johnston, referring to himself as “Deputy Superintendent charged with the Government of the Island of Hong Kong”, written from “Government Hill, Hong Kong” to G A Bushby, Secretary to the Governor of India, Johnston, stated:

“…  I have now to inform you that I have made regulations for a post office at this point, and I have to request that instructions may be given to the proper authorities…to address all mails for the Chinese Expedition as well as others that may be made up at the different post offices for this country to the Postmaster at Hong Kong.

Taking advantage of the discretionary authority conveyed to me in your letter of 3^rd February, I shall pay to the clerk in charge of the Post Office here, the sum of twenty Spanish dollars per men sum, on account of the Indian Government, as well as the requisite expenses incurred in the details of packing and sending letters to the different points in China where portions of the Expedition may be.

The allowance of twenty-five dollars per men sum made to the person in charge of the letters at Macao will cease after the 31^st October next, by which time I trust all mails will be addressed to Hong Kong alone and the services of the above mentioned person will no longer be necessary.

If all mails though addressed to the Postmaster at Hong Kong be further addressed “to the care of the Superintendent of the Trade of British Subjects in China” it will be a good precaution in case they should be landed at Macao, from whence I will direct the proper person, belonging to the Superintendent’s establishment to forward them to Hong Kong without delay.”

On 12 November 1841, Alexander Johnston, who had been left in charge at Hong Kong while the Expeditionary Force moved north, informed Pottinger, the Chief Superintendent,

“a small Post Office has been erected and finished.”

Thomas Fitzgibbon, one of Johnston’s clerks, was in charge of the first Hong Kong Post Office establishment that had been in operation since August 1841. It is not known whether the initial facilities were of a temporary nature, perhaps one of the erected mat sheds that were a feature of these early days, with the postal establishment moving into the brick single-storey house, referred to by Johnston, upon its completion. For the purposes of this article, the original location of the Post Office is considered to be that of the first permanent structure and not of any temporary facility that may have been used for the purpose of sorting mails beforehand.

In February 1842 the editor of the Canton Press ventured to Hong Kong from his Macao base and recorded that:

“The Government buildings consist at present of a Magistracy, a large and convenient brick building, just finished; the post office, record and land office, the jail and several other small brick buildings, some warehouses, and several barracks either finished or building.”

Following the death of Thomas Fitzgibbon, thought to be in early October 1841, and the short tenure of Messrs Palmer and Mullally, Robert Edwards was placed in charge of the Post Office from 18 April 1842 until he was succeeded by Francis Spring on 1 June 1843.

It was probably the increased complexity in the running of the Post Office that played a significant part in Robert Edwards’ vacation of the position of Postmaster in mid-1843. At the beginning of Edwards’ tenure the Post Office was merely an establishment for sending and receiving letters etc without charge, a relatively straightforward assignment.

The notice setting out Robert Edwards’ initial responsibilities was included in the Friend of China of 21 April 1842 and the Chinese Repository of April 1842.

The full text signed by J Robert Morrison as Acting Secretary and Treasurer on 15 April 1842, was as follows:

“ Mr Robert Edwards having been appointed to take charge of the Post Office at Hong Kong, the following regulations are published for his guidance and for general information.

All mails upon arrival are to be delivered to the Harbour Master, who will have them conveyed to the Post Office.

Notice of the intended time for closing any mail is to be given to the Harbour Master, who will make the necessary arrangements for taking it on board ship.

The Harbour Master is to give information to Mr Edwards of the arrivals, sailings and general movements of the vessels in Port, who will cause a notice of the same to be exposed at the Post Office; a general delivery of letters to take place at least once in every twenty-four hours.

All Government letters are to be forwarded immediately upon arrival.

The office to be kept open and attended from 8 o’clock am till 8 pm on weekdays and from 8 to 10 am and from 3 to 5 pm on Sundays.

For the present no charge of any description is to be made on Letters or Parcels.”

The subsequent insistence of the Indian postal authorities on pre-payment of certain postage at Hong Kong caused a major change in how the Post Office had to be run. It also required a change of premises since the building occupied in the period immediately prior to April 1843 was not large enough for the tasks now required to be carried out by the staff of the Post Office.

In a Government notification dated 12 June 1843 it was announced that:

“ The Post Office establishment is removed to the House formerly used as a Post Office on the right hand side of the Main Road leading up to Government House.”

This notification confirms that the Post Office had been relocated at some time from its original site and was now being moved back there. Based on this fact we know something about the original location from descriptions of the time.

As recorded by Morton, the initial Post Office was described by Mr Arthur Ridgway, who visited Hong Kong in 1843, in the “New Monthly Magazine” of February 1844, as a “particularly small building cocked up on a little hill near the road”. 

This is recognised as being south of the parade ground near or at the location of St John’s Cathedral. The Post Office was described in March 1845 as being on the south side of the parade ground.

In a speech delivered at the City Hall on 5 November 1872, the Reverend Legge noted that:

“On the parade ground was a small mat building which was the Colonial Church and above it, about where the Cathedral and Government offices now stand were the unpretending Government offices of that early time and the post office.”

In much later years (South China Morning Post February 1934) it was surmised that the original Post Office was located at the site of the then existing Volunteer Headquarters, this area of already leveled land was made available to the first Volunteer Unit in 1862. According to the writer of the 1934 articles on the Post Office:

“  there are old plans in the Land Office which show the Post Office so situated; and an old sketch of the present Murray and Victoria Barracks which I was shown recently, has a building in the top right-corner – approximately near the Cathedral site – marked “Post Office”…. The building shown is long one-storeyed and evidently rather roughly constructed.”

From the various descriptions and the 1934 observations it is very probable that the original Post Office establishment was located in what later became the grounds of the cathedral on the right hand side of the main road (now Garden Road) leading up to Government House. At that time Government House was on the opposite side of Upper Albert Road to the present location.

At some point the Post Office was relocated to smaller premises and then, due to the increased and more complicated function of the establishment, was moved back to the original location, which would later become a part of the grounds of St John’s Cathedral.

The foundation stone of the cathedral was laid in 1847, the site having been leveled in February 1847, by which time the Post Office was well settled in its next location. In January 1846 the Post Office had moved to more convenient and commodious premises at Queens Road, adjacent to Pedders Wharf, under Thomas Hyland, the recently arrived postmaster.