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Victoria Finlay

A weekly look through the archives at how the century progressed November 1, 1925: Sir Cecil Clementi arrived in Hong Kong as Governor and his first task was to attempt to improve pro-British morale, despite strikes and growing fears of commercial ruin.

 When he left in 1930, Sir Cecil left a diplomatic legacy, and many walking paths named after him on Hong Kong Island. His wife, Lady Penelope, left many riding paths.

 Sir Cecil's walks, said to refresh the spirit, were also a form of nostalgia for him. As a young man he had travelled extensively in China, learning many of its languages, and in 1907 he walked 4,800 kilometres from Central Asia to Kowloon. The Hong Kong footpaths, pythons and tigers notwithstanding, must have seemed tame in comparison.

September 1926: British naval forces sailed up the Pearl River to Canton, which was supporting an anti-British boycott. They landed a team of marines who cleared strike pickets from the wharves. This frightened the Canton government, which agreed to end the stoppages . . . on condition that they could tax imports.

March 10, 1927: RAF Kai Tak opened. It was the first Royal Air Force base in the Far East.

June 1928: Forget the strikes, everyone in Hong Kong was obsessed by rain - or the lack of it.

 The rainfall in the past year was the lowest on record, and the few reservoirs were almost dry. Water rationing was strict and large brick tanks built on the waterfront were being filled by ships bringing in water from as far away as Fuzhou, Shanghai, and even Japan. Aircraft were sent to sprinkle powdered kaolin into any cloud overhead but to no avail.

 By the time the drought ended in June, it had been decided to start work on a new reservoir at Shing Mun and to lay a pipeline under the harbour to get water from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island.

December 11, 1928: The Peninsula hotel opened, Italianate, ritzy, and just across the road from the ocean and railway terminals. Its opening was said to be 'the party of the decade'.

 The celebrations culminated in a carnival dinner dance in the Roof Garden Ballroom, with the King's Own Scottish Borderers piping in the guests onto the Terrace, on the first floor.

 They were, however, technically not the first guests. The hotel had opened its doors 14 months earlier as a temporary barracks for the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards and a battalion of the Devonshires, which had been brought in as emergency protection against strikers.

 Before the hotel was opened to paying guests all the bathtubs had to be replaced. They had, it seemed, been used as rifle storage.

September 1931: Japan's military invaded Manchuria and Japanese residents in Hong Kong were assaulted. Shops selling Japanese goods were looted and the members of a family of six were murdered in their country home.

 On the fourth day of violence the army was called in, opening fire to disperse the mobs. At least five Chinese were killed.

June 10, 1933: Kowloon Walled City inhabitants were ordered to move out of their homes by the end of 1934, and offered a compensation package allowing them to resettle in Kau Sut Ling.

 They appealed to Guangdong for help. When they had yet to move three years later, the Hong Kong Government proceeded with a demolition.

 The Chinese Foreign Affairs authorities lodged a strong protest. The British ignored it and tore down 250 residential buildings.

 The only ones to survive were an old yamen, the Lung Chin Yee Hok building, and the ancestral home of the Zheng family.

 But the tiny area soon bloomed again. It was to become the place of lawlessness and illegal drugs and dentists, and would remain such until it was demolished in 1993.



Clementi acts to lift British spirits