[SCMP Archive] Looking back: 50 years ago
Hong Kong International School gets ready to open its doors for the first time
![[SCMP Archive] Looking back: 50 years ago](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/2017/04/28/hkis_19910420-40.jpg?itok=u9g3Cl1Y)
[First published on Apr 20, 1991]
25 years ago
Hong Kong has its own “Stonehenge” on Lamma Island. An ovular formation of boulders weighing about half a ton each, it has been estimated to be at least 4000 years old by Prof S.G. Davis, head of the department of geography and geology at the University of Hong Kong.
The stone ring – first noticed in November 1959 – is located high on the west slope of the northwest part of Lamma Island, about 310 feet above sea level, according to Asian Perspectives, recently published by the Hong Kong University Press. Members of the University Archaeology team have since made several visits to examine it.
The rough unhewn natural boulders of coarse-grained granite form an artifact with a slightly constricted waist, and at the widest part measures nine feet by 14½ feet. Twenty-eight stones form the circumference and four more divide it across the waist.
The new Hong Kong International School, described as an American school in Hong Kong, will be ready by next summer, Dr Eugene Seltz, chairman of the Board of Managers, said.
He said that excavation on the site in Repulse Bay was well underway and that the $4m school would begin classes in September next year.
The Hon W.D.Gregg, Director of Education, will officiate at the ground-breaking ceremony on Thursday, April 28, at 4.30pm, followed by a reception at 5pm at the Repulse Bay Hotel.
Dr Seltz said that the project had been the subject of research and planning for more than three years. The school would offer a full course of study for primary and secondary education.
50 years ago
Twenty thousand street sleepers were accounted for in the recent Colony census undertaken by the Air Raid Precautions Department under the direction of Wing Commander A.H. Steele-Perkins, director of ARP, it was learned.
The census also served to reveal the number of people living in each district. There are approximately 15,000 people residing at Aberdeen; 36,000 at Bay View, 160,000 in the Central district, 210,000 in the Eastern district; 3,000 at Gough Hill, 22,000 at Quarry Bay, 31,000 at Shaukiwan, 8,000 at Stanley, 69,000 in the Upper level areas, 156,000 in the Western district, 41,000 in Hung Hom, 83,000 in Kowloon City, 110,000 at Mongkok, 173,000 at Shamshuipo, 36,000 at Tsimshatsui; and 148,000 at Yaumatei.
Street sleepers were included in the census but it is pointed out that the count regarding them cannot be very accurate because on the night of the census rain incessantly and this must have tended to drive habitual street sleepers to shelter.
The decision to start a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients was arrived at yesterday at a meeting of the Council of the Hong Kong Anti-Tuberculosis Association.
The scheme involved the purchase of a house and land on Shouson Hill, Pokfulam, at a cost of $35,000 and the expenditure of a further $15,000 on staff quarters and a pavilion. Accommodation at the beginning will be limited to 20 patients.
75 year ago
Before Mr Wood yesterday a Chinese who appeared with his head bandaged was charged with assaulting a boat woman at Aberdeen.
The woman, a widow, said she did not know the defendant snatched her things and then pushed her into the water, poking her with a bamboo while she was in the water. She clung to the side of the boat but the defendant seized her by the hair and pushed her head under water. She caught hold of the yale, and although he tried, the defendant was thus unable to row the boat away.