Whampoa's earliest mud dock, Canton, c. 1850s

The ‘Mud Docks’ on Whampoa Island are immediately to the right of the ‘chopboat’, home to P&O’s manager of the Dockyard John Couper who with his wife are seen here on deck. It is recorded that Couper was abducted by the locals into a boat at the night of 20 December 1856, shortly after the Second Opium War broke out, and never to be seen. After the war, much of the dock area was destroyed and the new docks were constructed in Hong Kong under the name ‘Hongkong and Whampoa Dockyard’.