Everything tagged: General

Can anyone help with some information? My partner claims his Mother's Aunt's husband's first wife was the last woman to be executed in Hong Kong. There is some truth to this, but I suspect she wasn't the last... All I know is that this execution took place in Hong Kong in the late 1940s, and it involved a woman who poisoned her children and workers in the shop the family owned in Western district. The husband survived, went on to remarry and had a second family. The first wife was seldom if ever dicsussed.

The hosting company has finished moving the Gwulo website to the new server. It has more RAM and storage available, in preparation for the upcoming website upgrade.

Everything should be working the same as it did on the old server, but if you see any problems then please let me know.

Regards, David

Sir John Keswick had instructed me to “see the old Empire” on the way. So early in 1958 I arrived in The Crown Colony of Hong Kong, first class on the MV Victoria; heady stuff for a 22 year old!  I was joining Hongkong Land Co. and they housed me in their central Gloucester Hotel.

The ‘British Empire’ was still in existence, at least in some colonial minds. Hong Kong was a relatively quiet territory, coping with the effects of the changing political arrangements on the mainland. China had cut itself off from the world and the Great Leap Forward was vigorously underway. 

Came across the captioned recollection of Lt. Johnston, Royal Rifles of Canada at https://heritagelsl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/C.-Douglas-Johnston-WW2-Hong-Kong-War-Recollections-.pdf An interesting read.

1958

In 1958, Hong Kong was a relatively quiet British Colony coping with effects of some changing political arrangements in China, hidden behind its borders. The population had grown to an unprecedented 2.5 million people. The Japanese occupation was still a topic of conversation.  The territory was far more isolated in every sense than it is now. The economy was generally weak. 

Folks,

A note even though all libraries are closed at the moment.  There may be bed mites in the spines of the books.  That includes ALL books in local public libraries as they are being circulated around the city.  Once those bugs got into your home, you may not recognize it immediately.  You may not notice it untils months later until they are grown.

Henry Qualtrough was a good friend of mine and we saw a lot of each other in the early 1960s through rugby. In my early days he was a colony selector and kindly selected me a couple of times to play for the colony.After that he ran the referees and I became secretary of the union so we drank a lot of beer together! For a fun account of those times Read "Tokkie Smith and the colour of rugby" , a historical rugby book I wrote leading up to the Hongkong Sevens. It's easy to get on Amazon kindle. Cheers John D'Eathe, West Vancouver.

Interesting to see horses are listed in the 1863 ordinance about hiring public vehicles, but I don’t remember having seen any horse (except for racing) or horse driven carriages on old Hong Kong photos. If someone knows more, please leave a comment.