What's new and updated on the Gwulo website:

General

• Courage in the Shadows is the newly published biography of Phyllis Nolasco Da Silva. Phyllis worked for the BAAG in Kwongchowwan for three dangerous years in WW2, controlling their agents there, and surviving interrogation and blackmail by the Japanese and their Chinese staff.
   
• Please help to put a Shamshuipo POW camp wartime diary online.
  • Barbara Harding has scanned her father's wartime diary, and has generously offered it to be included in our daily wartime diary emails. Luckily, advances in AI mean that the handwritten pages can now be converted into text automatically, with good though not complete accuracy.
  • Can you help add a page from the diary to the daily emails? There will be three steps, that should take you less than an hour in total:
    1. Use free AI to extract the text.
    2. Compare the AI-generated text with the original and correct any mistakes.
    3. Post the daily diary entries to the Gwulo website.
  • If you'd like to help please reply to this email with DIARY in the subject, and I'll send you over a scanned page and instructions on how to process it.
  • To see the finished results, you can view the first and last entries from Leo Landau's wartime diary, which I've already transcribed and posted online.
     
• Members of the Yorkshire Society in the Argyle Street POW Camp
   
• In the wartime diaries: 16 Aug 1945 - War is over!
   
• More memories of growing up in Mount Nicholson Government Quarters
   
• A King shipyard in the 1940s-1970s 
   
• Hong Kong & China history talks in the UK
  • Just two weeks to go until my talks in York (5 Sep) and Edinburgh (9 Sep) - I'm looking forward to them!
     
  • I'm going to repeat the talks in Cheltenham and Exeter in October. If you'd like details, please reply with CHELTENHAM or EXTER as your email subject.
     
  • Bristol University's Hong Kong History Centre are running their Hong Kong History Day on 5 Sep. Two speakers I recognise are Tim Ko and John Carroll from Hong Kong, both of whom give great presentations.
     
  • Then later in the month, the Friends of East Asia host host the talk Chinese Art for Western Interiors on 19 Sep in London. Colin Sheaf, ex Chairman of Bonhams Asia, will give an illustrated talk on the growing enthusiasm for “Chinoiserie” objects in the West during the 17th and 18th centuries.
     
• Unlocking the To Tsai Church (道濟會堂) Registries: A Macro-Study of Generational Shifts, Dual-Track Administration, and the 1893 Fung Family Twins
   
• A Study of the Early Hong Kong Protestant Elite: Disentangling the Relationship and Houses of Kwan Yuen-cheung (關元昌) and Kwan Yun-fat (關潤發/關元發)
   
• Erratum and Apology: Correcting the Maternal Lineage of Fung Fu (馮扶) and the Identity Conflation of Kwan Yuet-ming (關月明)
   
• Construction and Expenditure Summary: King’s College (Bonham Road School)
   
• What should we include in 'Guidelines for new contributors' for the Gwulo website?
   
• Yet another Two Gun Cohen film project
   
• Readers ask:
  • Looking for old School friends 1970s and 80s in HK-Kei Oi-Buddhist Tai Hung Collge-Caritas Bianchi College of Careers
     
  • Looking for an old friend from Hong Kong – Lau Kwok Yim (“Charly/Charlie”)

    • 

Places

What's new and updated on the Gwulo website:

General

• Gwulo talks in York and Edinburgh. The venues are booked, and look perfect for viewing old photos - York has a large screen & projector that is used for a community cinema, and Edinburgh has tiered seating and is one of the venues for Edinburgh Fringe. Links to details & booking below (please let any friends know you think might be interested!):
  • York on Saturday 5 September 2026
     
  • Edinburgh on Wednesday 9 September 2026
     
• Thanks to philk, moddsey, and Jimmy for identifying the location of these slides in last week's video:
  • Shatin Valley

    • 

  • Victoria Park Swimming Pool

    • 

• But the location of these two is still unknown:

  • 

  • 

     

• First football matches after WWII
   
• Early History and Migrations of Saiyingpun School (1850s–1891)
   
• Time to Remember (audio; radio series 1960-70s)
   
• Readers ask:
  • Looking for a photo of 1 Queen's Road West with red facade signage
     
  • Who were ASECO (Asiatic European Corporation Ltd.) and A.J. van der Weiden, in Hong Kong in the mid-1960s
     
  • What was the name of the disco in Bank of America Tower in the 1990s?
     
  • Is there any documentation that lists Shipping movements in / out of HK in the period of my interest (1843-1845); Port Authority documents, Newspapers, being 2 that immediately come to mind?
     
  • Can you identify any of the people in these caricatures drawn in the 1930s?
    • There are two sketches of the first man

      • 

      • 

    • But only one of this man, labelled 'Red Blouse' in Russian

      • 

    • And no clues for this one

      • 

Places

What's new and updated on the Gwulo website:

General

• Gwulo talks in York and Edinburgh. I'm planning to give a talk in York and in Edinburgh in September. If you'd like me to send you the details once the dates & venues are confirmed, please reply to this email with YORK or EDINBURGH in the subject line.
   
• KCR carriages bought from the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) in 1948
   
• A football match in 1865 HK
   
• 1928: meeting on plans to build a hostel for women students of Hong Kong University
   
• Readers ask:
  • Yanbo Wang asks if anyone can put him in touch with Roger B. Houghton, "whose work on old Hong Kong and the Canton newspapers, especially A People’s History 1793–1844 from the newspapers, is very relevant to my research."

Places

What's new and updated on the Gwulo website:

General

• Contributor Pingau has been updating and adding to the records of milestones that used to exist along Hong Kong's main roads
   
• Contributor lausanching has been adding press clippings about Hong Kong's schools from the early 20th century
   
• Origins of the Strong Wind Signal, which was first used in 1950
   
• Readers ask:
  • Does anyone have a photo of Apcar G. Apcar's gravestone at Hong Kong Cemetery, plot 23---/12/01 ?
     
  • Does anyone remember the Uttam children in Royden House School?
     

  • Which year was this photo taken:

    

Places