MURRAY HOUSE IS a something of a museum piece in itself. But the 151- year-old building at Stanley has just taken on even greater historical significance, becoming home to the city's fourth private museum.
The Hong Kong Maritime Museum, which opened on Friday on the ground floor of Murray House, is expected to bolster the standing of Hong Kong's private museums. The other three - the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences in Mid-Levels, the Museum of Ethnology in Tai Po Kau and the Hong Kong Racing Museum in Happy Valley - have long struggled to attract the sort of support on which counterparts in cities such as New York and London rely.
Inside the 5,000sqft museum, models of junks and ships, paintings, maps and other maritime artefacts are packed into air-conditioned, softly lit galleries.
The museum focuses on the development of shipping in ancient China and in Hong Kong from the mid-19th century onwards. According to director Stephen Davies, the reason it confines itself to commercial shipping and doesn't encompass naval history (a subject touched on by the Museum of Coastal Defence) is to 'stay ideologically correct'.
'We move from the story of China, about their building of junks before the 20th century, to commercial shipping to avoid the period where the coming of western fleets posed threats and humiliation to the Chinese nation,' says Davies.
The museum is divided into two exhibition halls: the Ancient Gallery, which details early sea voyages in China; and the Modern Gallery, which showcases vessels used by shipping companies operating in Hong Kong. Models on display range from a pottery boat made in the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD25 to 220) to a 564,763 tonne crude oil carrier, the ocean-going version of which is 458 metres long.