Hong Kong Through the Lens of John Thomson

Few nineteenth century photos capture both the facts and feeling of Victoria Harbour better than this John Thomson view of its water, ships, city and mountains. About mid-harbour, and on a line roughly between today’s Tsim Sha Tsui Star Ferry pier and Central.

The dominating vessel is of the transitional sail-to-power era, with sails on its yard-arms and paddle wheels on its hull.

This streetscape looks inland along Pedder Street towards its clock tower. Sited at the northern side of the intersection of Pedder Street and Queen’s Road, today’s Queen’s Road Central, the clock tower was completed in 1862 and demolished in 1913. 

Thomson’s photo, given the clock face and shadows, was taken at about 8:20 am on a summer morning. 

It is one of the steep streets above Central District, for on the far left of John Thomson’s streetscape, set onto the brick wall, a sign names Cochrane Street.  

The view was probably taken from above Wellington Street since, right up to the oblique junction with Lyndhurst  Terrace, seen at the top, no crossroads can be seen. 

Along the street, Thomson almost certainly has posed some figures. They all stand motionless for a lengthy exposure. The blurred patterns across the middle of the road are from other – unhelpfully moving – figures. 

The open ground became the Hong Kong Cricket Club, and today is Chater Garden. The site of the City Hall is now the old Bank of China and the HSBC building. 

Precisely replicating the view was impossible, since Chater Garden is surrounded by trees and walls. Given this, the 2015 image was taken from some distance back and also from higher up, on the fifth floor of the Murray Road Car Park. 

The Former French Mission Building, an AMO Declared Monument, is seen at left in the modern photo. Its precursor, then privately owned, also appears in John Thomson’s image.

Standing on the harbour praya, or today just south of the eastern end of Chater Road, Thomson photographed the imposing façade of the City Hall. It was completed in 1869, midway during his time in Hong Kong. 

The attractive northern curve of the praya allowed him to take his view from some distance back. Even so, the bulk of the City Hall hid the buildings higher up: St John’s Cathedral, the Government Offices.

Fishtail Rock, named for its fin-like shape, stood on an islet about one and a half kilometres to the south of the eastern end of Boundary Street: the northern border of that part of Kowloon ceded to Britain in 1860.  

A fairly prominent harbour feature, the rocky islet appears on Captain Edward Belcher’s 1841 Hong Kong Nautical Chart and on later charts, rather grandiosely named – given its small size – Tok Kwu Wan Island. 

John Thomson photographed the rock, then about half a kilometre offshore, from a sandy beach. His photo looks southeast, with the outcrop hiding Lei Yue Mun, the eastern entrance to Victoria Harbour.

John Thomson’s photo was taken at the Protestant Cemetery in Happy Valley, then part of the Hong Kong Colonial Cemetery.

Here lie buried the mortal remains of James Smith (J.S. on his footstone), Colin S. Matheson and Louisa Green (died 1866).

The 2015 image was taken in virtually the identical position. This is evident from the graves in the left of Thomson’s image, with the same tombstones appearing in the centre left of the 2015 photo.

Recent construction prevented the 2015 photographer moving back as Thomson did, and the tree is gone.

The cemetery’s chapel – with no known name – is the oldest remaining European building in Hong Kong.  It appears in both images, though it is mostly obscured by a bamboo clump at the extreme left of Thomson’s view.

Initially, we thought that the gully was today’s extension of Queen’s Road East, where it meets the expanse of Happy Valley. 

More reconnaissance showed that the location of Thomson’s vantage point in fact is a little above the lower part of Stubbs Road, overlooking Saint Michael’s Catholic Cemetery.

The Chinese Pines framing both photos are intriguing; but given the ravages of tree-cutting, typhoons and tree aging they must be different specimens.

Thomson was positioned to the northeast of ‘Leighton’s Hill’, almost certainly standing on the nearby high point – East Point Hill, close to today’s Jardine’s Bazaar.

Looking south-southwest, he captured the ‘formal gardens’ marked on an 1888 map, the quarried off end of today’s Leighton Hill, Happy Valley, and the summits of Hong Kong Island.

Today The Leighton Hill, a monolithic tower block vastly out of proportion to its  surroundings, now completely obscures this view. So the 2015 photo had to be taken from further to the west. It was shot from the roof of a building facing the Craigengower Cricket Club.

The distant summits appear to be the same, but this is a directional illusion. The whale-backed summit seen in Thomson’s view is Mount Nicholson. Looking further to the west (or right), that rising in today’s image is Mount Cameron.

This view is unmistakably of Queen’s Road (then named without the ‘Central’). It was probably taken by John Thomson when he knew the street would be empty, to avoid any movement blurring caused by the slow shutter exposures of the times.

Given both the Pedder Street clock tower and the distant slopes, Thomson was looking southeastwards not northwestwards along Queen’s Road.

The sedan chair bearer is close to where today the MacDonald’s ‘golden arches’ overhang Queen’s Road Central.

This was one of the hardest of the John Thomson photos to precisely locate, in part because no peaks can be seen. 

However, the consensus of three photo historians is that John Thomson’s view was taken near the eastern end of today’s Queen’s Road East, looking towards the Wah Yan College-clearly seen in both images. 

This John Thomson photo perplexed us. The summit appears to be Victoria Peak. Yet where in Central District, in 1868, could one find such a wide gully – surrounded by pockets of woodland? Finally, from harbour ferries, we identified the peak’s precise contours. 

This showed that, without any question, Thomson’s summit is Victoria Peak and that the view looks west-southwest. 

Topographical charts show a very large watercourse draining much of Victoria Peak, right around to Mount Gough, and then descending immediately to the east of Murray Barracks, today’s Hong Kong Park.  The stream later was formed into a concrete nullah. 

Its above ground section can still be seen just below Kennedy Road; its underground section lies beneath Hong Kong Park. The 2015 image, thus, was taken from the middle of Hong Kong Park – where Thomson’s gully once flowed.