Henry Ching sent these details of Mitchell's ranks in the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps:
(number in brackets is the Gazette entry number for that year)
His wedding to Miss Frances Isabel Oakley was described page 24 of the Hong Kong Sunday Herald, 1929-12-08:
CRICKETER WED
Ceremony in St. John’s Cathedral
GOVERNOR PRESENT
Practically all the prominent people of Hong Kong were in the St John's Cathedral yesterday afternoon when the marriage of Mr. Harry Owen Hughes to Miss Frances Isabel Oakley was solemnised at 3 o’clock.
Ernest Hillas Williams was from a Church of Ireland family from Cork (Eire). He entered the Colonial Civil Service as an administrator, eventually becoming Puisne Judge and then Assistant Attorney General.
He was a sergeant in the HKVDC, imprisoned first in Shamshuipo and then Innoshima Camp (Japan).
After the war he became Chief Justice of the British Borneo Territories.
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.
John Arthur Gaunt was a brilliant physicist - 'the Gaunt factor' is a formula still used in astrophysics.
He graduated with First Class Honours from Trinity, Cambridge in 1926 and began a period of research. His specialism was the new field of Quantum Mechanics, then entering its greatest periods - he probably attended the first course of lectures given by Paul Dirac, now considered one of the finest physicists of all time.
DoB from John Black's list, which gives Begg's occupation in 1941 as "Merchant".
If anyone has a photo of this man, please could you post a copy for us to see? I'm helping Patricia O'Sullivan identify some faces in a photo, and one is likely this man.
A quick search on Gwulo finds a few mentions, including:
1907-8 Jurors List:
| Wood | Gerald George | Civil Engineer | Hongkong Hotel |
1909-15 Jurors List:
THE ESCAPE OF CAPT I B TREVOR HKVDC.
The escape was made from Shamshuipo from a slipway used for careening sampans, which was not wired. 11.25 p m February 1st the route commenced by creeping along a typhoon wall for some 600 yards, swimming to a point in Shamshuipo Bay opposite a Chinese Sauce factory, and then up Golden Hill and down the Shingmun gorge.
