Letters | Hong Kong officials may read 1934 journal for clues to water works history

The senior officials of both the Water Supplies Department and the Antiquities and Monuments Office could do no better than to start by reading the July-December 1934 issues of The Far Eastern Review, a monthly engineering, industrial commercial journal published in Manila and later Shanghai between 1904 and 1941.

In these issues, there are a combined 70-plus richly illustrated pages describing Hong Kong’s massive early 20th century water works projects. The five-part history titled “Water Supply in Hongkong – The Story of a Triumph of Applied Science” was written by Professor C.A. Middleton Smith, the then dean of the engineering faculty at the University of Hong Kong.

P. A. Crush, Discovery Bay