One week tomorrow, on Thursday, November 6, the South China Morning Post celebrates its 100th birthday. As part of a series of special reports in the run-up to the anniversary, this page will feature comparative photographs taken from the same spot a century apart, and also carry a number of interviews with some of Hong Kong's characters who were born before the paper was first published.
The area where the South China Morning Post offices now stand was once dominated by the Taikoo Sugar Refining Company, one of the largest industrial enterprises in Hong Kong and part of the mighty Swire Group. The refinery in Quarry Bay had been built 20 years earlier. There was spirited bidding for the large waterfront site when it came up for sale. Two heavyweights were in contention; Jardine Matheson also wanted the land for its China Sugar Refining Company. Butterfield and Swire won out with a bid of $44,500.
By 1903, when the above photograph was taken from a hillside vantage point, Taikoo was the largest refinery east of Suez, producing about 2,000 tonnes of refined sugar a week. The complex had its own electricity generating system and to guarantee essential water supplies it bought land up a valley and built Braemar Reservoir. During droughts, Taikoo supplied Hong Kong with water, carried down the harbour to Central in its own iron sugar lighters. The sugar sold throughout China and in 1905 the company registered the 'Yin and Yang' trademark still used today.
Taikoo Docks, another Swire enterprise, were built in the next bay along the coast towards Shau Kei Wan. A few months after this photograph was taken the coastline changed dramatically when a graving dock was carved out of the granite. Today, that is the underground carpark beneath Taikoo Shing.
In 1917, the 5,806-tonne steamship, Autolycus, was launched there, at the time the largest vessel built in a British territory outside the United Kingdom.
During the occupation, both the refinery and the dockyards were used by the Japanese, and the sites were targeted by Allied bombers. By the time the liberating fleet sailed into the Fragrant Harbour in August 1945, both were in ruins.