Online Exhibition of Seeing in the dark: Hong Kong Harbour and Lighthouses.

This online exhibition comprises three sections:

1) Revisiting Early Development of Hong Kong Harbour in 19th Century

2) Hong Kong Lighthouses built in the pre-World War II era

3) New Face of Hong Kong Harbour: as an international Entrepôt. This online exhibition project is part of the Seeing in the dark: Hong Kong Harbour and Lighthouses exhibition event held in Hong Kong Maritime Museum (HKMM) in May 2021 funded by Maritime and Aviation Training Fund (MATF) and co-organised by HKMM, and City University of Hong Kong.

As early as the Song dynasty, Hong Kong already performed the role of coastal artery with the technological advances of Chinese shipbuilding and the development of sea transport. In the Ming dynasty, an official ban on foreign trade made Penny’s Bay, Lantau Island, a clandestine transit centre for smuggling ceramics overseas. In the mid-sixteenth century, foreigners were actively seeking to establish a permanent settlement in China and scrambling to retain trade interests there, consequently leading to a series of Sino-foreign hostilities. 

The shipping industry in Hong Kong developed from the 1850s. There was significant growth in the number of incoming ships and trade, with main imports including opium, raw cotton, fur, rice, wine, woollen goods, matches, coal and kerosene oil. The main exports were bamboo goods, ceramics, pearls, furniture, ivory, lacquer, silk and tea. The coolie trade of the time also stimulated the growth of the local shipping industry as many Southern Chinese labourers travelled from Hong Kong port to foreign countries in search of jobs.

Since the early nineteenth century, leading foreign firms, such as Jardine Matheson & Co., Dent & Co., Butterfield and Swire, Russell & Co. and Augustine Heard & Co., had established offices in Hong Kong. They were mainly engaged in import and export, but also involved in a variety of businesses, such as sugar refining, shipbuilding, dockyards, and spinning and rope work.

With the growth of shipping and trade, Hong Kong established its role as an entrepôt and facilitated the development of the shipbuilding and maintenance industry. Lamont Dock and Hope Dock, for example, were early dockyards built in Hong Kong mainly operated by foreigners.

In the 1860s, the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Co. Ltd. (HWD) and Union Dock Company (UDC) were established. Later, the HWD became a giant in the local dockyard industry, merging with the UDC and acquiring small dockyards like Sands Slip and the Cosmopolitan Dock, until the rise of Taikoo Dock in the early twentieth century. 

With the rapid and successful development of the shipping industry, port facilities became increasingly important, and from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the port facility works undertaken by the government were largely confined to the construction and maintenance of public piers, such as Blake Pier, Queen’s Pier, the Star Ferry Pier and the Vehicular Ferry Pier, seawalls and the praya. Private companies, such as Dent & Co. and Jardine Matheson & Co., also built piers.

After the excavation of the Suez Canal in 1869, Chinese and foreign trade activities increased, so the plan for a lighthouse was put back on the agenda and government funding granted for its construction. In 1873, after lengthy deliberations, the government proposed lighthouses at Cape D’Aguilar (Hok Tsui), Green Island and Cape Collinson. After these earliest lighthouses had been built in Hong Kong, more were set up along the ports to assist countless ships entering Hong Kong for decades.

After Cape D’Aguilar Lighthouse, Green Island Lighthouse was also put into service in the same year. Situated on the northwest coast of Hong Kong Island, the Green Island Lighthouse comprises new and old lighthouses. The illuminating apparatus at the outset was a fixed Dioptric of the fourth order, emitting both red and green light. The focal plane of the light stood 95 feet above sea level and was visible at a distance of 14 miles in clear weather. In 1905, the government moved the lantern of Cape D’Aguilar Lighthouse to Green Island. To accommodate the Cape D’Aguilar light apparatus, a higher and larger tower, the new lighthouse, was established and it was fully automated in the 1970s. Green Island Lighthouses together with the former European staff quarters and keeper’s house were declared a monument in 2008.

In the late 19th century, a proposal for the construction of lighthouses on Gap Rock Island and Waglan Island was raised by the Hong Kong Government. Situated in the southwest of Waglan Island near Po Toi, Waglan Island Lighthouse was put into service in 1893. The lighthouse was equipped with an advanced signal light, burning mineral oil with a rotating apparatus floating on mercury to illuminate. It was one of the only two modern pieces of equipment introduced and installed in Asian waters at that time. 

Waglan Island Lighthouse was initially run by the Chinese Maritime Customs, but eventually transferred to the Hong Kong Government in 1901 following the signing of the New Territories’ lease in 1898. Waglan Island Lighthouse was extensively damaged during the Second World War and repaired after 1945. It was automated in 1989 and declared a monument in 2000.

In July 1937, with the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, all port infrastructural works came to a complete halt and the Victoria Harbour could no longer serve as an entrepôt. On 28 December 1941, the Japanese forces officially occupied Hong Kong and the shipping industry was greatly affected as the main navigation channels came under Japanese control. Many of the piers ceased operation or had to modify their facilities for defence. When Japan surrendered in 1945, Hong Kong regained vitality and reconstruction work followed.

Post-war rehabilitation and reconstruction of port facilities such as piers, godowns and docks topped the list of many urgent items necessary in order to resume the normal operations of transportation by sea. The Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter extension programme was the first large-scale project undertaken after the war, and more plans for additional typhoon shelters throughout the territory were made later to allow fishing boats and vessels to moor inside the shelters during typhoons. In the 1950s, the reconstruction projects of the piers along the Central areas included the Star Ferry Pier, Queen’s Pier, the Hong Kong-Macau Ferry Terminal, etc.

With increasing numbers of international ships visiting Hong Kong, port facilities were developed and more navigational safety aids such as lighthouses and signal stations built. Old-style lighthouses were converted into modern apparatus and signal systems to keep pace with the times, and coastal reclamation, piers, fairway dredging and typhoon shelters were all signs of urban modernisation and further facilitated the port’s development.

The increasing demand for local seaborne transportation and traffic encouraged the industrialisation of the shipbuilding industry and the construction of different types of ships. Most motorboats came from Hong Kong’s dockyards. Walla-wallas, for example, were mainly used to carry people across Victoria Harbour and to take seamen from ocean-going vessels to the downtown piers. They played a significant role in cross-harbour transformation in the 1950s and 1960s.

Tugs had been in service in the city since the late nineteenth century. They were initially used to carry both passengers and goods, and then only goods and to tow ocean-going vessels. From the 1960s, tugs were used extensively to help meet the needs of Hong Kong’s flourishing export trade.

In the 1950s, the ferry network grew at a terrific speed to cope with urban development and improve transport between Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon Peninsula and the outlying islands. The Hongkong and Yaumati Ferry Company Limited and the Star Ferry Company put more ferries into service, establishing the ferries’ important role in crossing Hong Kong’s waters.

The container industry in Hong Kong started in the early 1960s, but at that time standardised containers were only handled at three facilities, the Kowloon Wharves of Hongkong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Co. Ltd., the North Point Wharves, and the Kowloon Docks. In the initial period of containerisation, many container ships were converted bulk carriers. Due to the global trend towards containerisation, a plan to build additional container terminals was developed to meet the increasing demand from container ships and to enhance Hong Kong’s competitiveness in the maritime trade.

The container terminal was built on a seabed site along the shoreline of Kwai Chung by private tender in phases. In 1976, five berths of Kwai Chung Container Terminals went into full operation. The Kwai Chung Container Terminals were further expanded through reclamation in the 1980s and 1990s to meet port development needs. With the booming international sea trade and rising figures in Hong Kong’s container handling capacity, Hong Kong became one of the world’s busiest container ports