Travellers' Checks | When Hong Kong welcomed back an old friend, P&O ocean liner RMS Canton, in 1947, and its last voyage, to a Hong Kong breaker’s yard, 15 years later
- The ship, which first plied the route in 1938, sailed into Victoria Harbour in 1947 after having called into Bombay, Colombo and Singapore
- Service continued until 1962, when the outdated RMS Canton was sent to a Hong ship-breaking yard
“The sea passenger service between Britain and the Far East, suspended throughout the war, was reopened today when the P. & O. liner Canton left [Southampton] for Hongkong with 544 passengers,” reported the Hongkong Telegraph on October 18, 1947. Having first arrived in Hong Kong in 1938, RMS Canton had been the latest in a long line of P&O ships connecting Hong Kong with Britain since 1845, and news of her post-war return – and that of P&O – was eagerly anticipated.
With her formerly black hull painted a modern white, she arrived first in Bombay and Colombo, then in Singapore, where she offloaded about 100 passengers. The disembarkation list – civil servants and socialites – was pure Somerset Maugham: The Dowager Lady Frances Hawke, Mrs A.C. Farquharson, Mr F.O. Pidduck, Mr A.R. Cheeseman, et al.
On November 17, the Canton sailed into Victoria Harbour and tied up at Kowloon Wharf, where Harbour City stands today. “Passengers began to disembark soon afterwards,” observed The China Mail, “and many were greeted by waiting friends and relatives.” Also disembarking, in custody, were “two respectable looking Chinese women” who had boarded in Singapore and were caught by Hong Kong customs agents with 24 bars of gold concealed in specially made waistcoats.
The Canton connected Britain and Hong Kong regularly until August 1962, when she was withdrawn from service, by then outdated and the last P&O ship on the Hong Kong route with no air conditioning. She was sold to the Leung Yau Shipbreaking Yard and returned to Hong Kong with a skeleton crew to meet her fate in early October. There was a public sale of her contents, with local bargain hunters and former passengers buying up fixtures and fittings from cutlery to carpets, some of which must still be scattered around Hong Kong.
As reported in the South China Morning Post on October 4, 1962, the ship’s bell was presented by her captain, “for use on important occasions”, to the principal of Ying Wa College – Hong Kong’s oldest school – where it still hangs outside the assembly hall.