Everything tagged: The Towers

Lau Kam Fung is the name of the purchaser given on the document of sale of I.L. 1947 R.P. on 9 September 1944. This is the plot on which The Towers, 20 Broadwood Road stood at that time. I have been unable to trace Lau Kam Fung. by 1944 the property had reverted to the ownership of the China Hong Nin Life Insurance Co, with whom it had been mortgaged. As the war had not yet ended in 1944, the purchaser must have gambled on making a good profit from developing the large plot whichever side won. The entire document is in Japanese.

Laura Dransfield was the wife of Albert Dransfield who latterly ran his own import/export company, A. Dransfield & Co. She had two daughters, Laura Woolnough Campbell (probably by a previous marriage) and Dorothy Olive Dransfield. The Dransfields were close friends of the Warrens and Leslie Warren lived with them after his wife and children left for the UK in 1938. They seem to have rented The Towers. Albert Dransfield died in November 1940 and a letter from Leslie to his family in May 1941 relates that Laura had settled in Johannesburg but would have preferred to be in the UK.

ER Walch was an accountant with Lowe, Bingham & Matthews from about 1936-1941. Address in Jurors List for 1936 was The Peak Hotel. His 1937-1940 address is given as 20 Broadwood Road, usually known as The Towers. He is given as an auditor in Hong Kong in the 1941 Government Gazette. He married Dorothy Olivia Dransfield, daughter of Albert and Laura Dransfield on 20th April 1939 at the Union Church. There is a press photo that I can't find. Walch was probably a friend of Leslie Warren who also gives his address as 20 Broadwood Road in the Jurors List of 1940. 

According the Eulogy published in the Hong Kong Daily Press of 26 November 1940 Albert Dransfield died suddenly, aged 68, at his home in Broom Street, Happy Valley on 24 November 1940. He is described as a loyal member of the Methodist Church and energetic supporter of the Soldiers and Sailors Home. He was resident in Hong Kong for over 30 years according to the Eulogy. The Jurors Lists give him as Storekeeper and then Timekeeper at the Taikoo Sugar Refinery Company. (Is Timekeeper more complicated than it sounds?} Latterly he founded his own import/export company, A. Dransfield & Co.

I am looking for information about my grandmother, Hannah Warren, who returned to Hong Kong from England in June 1923 on the death of her husband, my grandfather, Charles Edward Warren, but whose funeral she did not arrive in time to attend. Her own death certificate states that she had spent "about" 25 years in Australia. We assume that she was evacuated from Hong Kong between 1939 and 1941, but there is no definite record of that. I haven't been able to find any record of where she was living after her return in 1923 until 1941.