Hong Kong

Also see

• China
• Subscription websites-online newspapers, journals and directories : Other Asian publications.

Information about ProQuest Historical Newspapers: South China Morning Post—1903-1998 (published in Hong Kong) and other databases containing Chinese and Japanese English language newspapers.

Records

• See General Register Office, UK
• There was Civil Registration in Hong Kong, refer External links below. There are no records before 1873.
• "Hong Kong Cemetery" Searchable and browsable database created by Ms Patricia Lim, with images. From Hong Kong Memory. Leisure and Cultural Services Department, Hong Kong Government.
  • Details of some of the inscriptions from the Ossuary

For expanded cemetery details, see Forgotten Souls : a Social History of the Hong Kong Cemetery by Patricia Lim c 2011. Available at the British Library UIN: BLL01015724284 . Sample pages Google Books.

• See External links below for the Searchable database on the website China Families.
• FamilySearch Research page Hong Kong for Historical Records. However, some records are classified as China records and it may be clearer to find records directly from the Catalog specifically for Hong Kong, see following item.
• FamilySearch Catalog for microfilm/digitised microfilm records includes

"Births, deaths, marriages from Canton and Hong Kong newspapers, arranged chronologically, 1828-1862" catalogue entry microfilm 1208508, item 13, which has been digitised and may be viewed on your home computer.

"Europeans - China Coast : [card file]" “Individual cards for Europeans residing in Hong Kong and China during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries”. Digitised microfilm which may be viewed on your home computer.

Search the FamilySearch Catalog for additional catalogue entries, for example by using keywords Hong Kong, and filtering by English language, and selecting Availability Online. There are many databases available, including Church Registers for Birth, Marriage and Death, Cemetery Inscriptions catalogue entry, Will extracts, Card Files and other data from the Carl T. Smith collection etc, most of which are viewable on home computers. Also see FamilySearch Centres for changes involving microfilms.

• Refer online Hong Kong newspapers, see below, for birth, marriage and death notices.
• See Hong Kong Government Reports Online, below. A researcher advised that he found details of a relative who worked for the Hong Kong lighthouse service in these online government publications. The information was found in an official publication know as the Blue Book in a section "Civil Establishments of Hongkong" which lists information about Civil Servants.
• See Cemeteries for websites such as Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and The War Graves Photographic Project, which include pages titled Stanley Military Cemetery and Sai Wan (China) Memorial, in addition to other pages.
• The BACSA Archive at the British Library holds information on both Happy Valley and Stanley cemeteries under file reference Mss Eur F370/81
• The book Garrison Memorials in Hong Kong: Some Graves and Monuments at Happy Valley by Solomon Bard 1997 is available at the British Library in the BACSA Archive, catalogue reference Mss Eur F370/1242. By the same author, but not held in the BACSA Archive, Study of Military Graves and Monuments: Hong Kong Cemetery 1991, (Hong Kong Antiquities and Monuments Office) thought to be available at the Public Record Office, Hong Kong, possibly as a typescript. May possibly include information about Stanley Cemetery.
• The book British and Indian Armies on the China Coast 1785-1985 by Alan Harfield 1990 is available at the British Library, UIN: BLL01009472436 . Includes lists such as “List of Known Recipients of the Hong Kong Plague Medal 1894” and “List of Officers who served with the Hong Kong Regiment 1892-1902”. This link lists some “Military Commanders of Hong Kong and China” from the book (pages 483-484).

Hong Kong Volunteers

Regimental history

• Second to None : the Story of the Hong Kong Volunteers by Phillip Bruce 1991. Available at the British Library UIN: BLL01012596174

External links

• “Major Genealogical Record Sources in Hong Kong” by the Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Series J, No. 4 1975. lib.byu.edu. Refers to Civil Registration. Records prior to 1873 no longer exist. All pre-war marriage records have been lost.
  • Immigration Department contact details. This Department is responsible for Civil Registration but the website does not include information about certificates for family history purposes for persons not resident in Hong Kong, so you would need to contact the Department.
• Newspapers, including online
  • Hong Kong Public Libraries
    • Information about Old Newspapers and microforms available, now an archived page (details at 2013/03, it is not clear whether this information is also available on the current website.)
    • Newspapers and Periodicals Services, now an archived page (details at 2013/05, it is not clear whether this information is also available on the current website.)
    • To access online historical newspapers, from the link, Multimedia Information System (MMIS) select Collection then “Old HK Newspapers” to view these online. Previously the website advised the online newspapers are in TIFF format. If you cannot see the newspaper images, you may need to download a TIFF plug-in. The Newspapers available in English are
      • China Mail (1866/01/04 – 1961/12/29)，
      • Hong Kong Daily Press (1864/01/04 – 1941/09/30)，
      • Hong Kong Sunday Herald (1929/01/06 – 1950/10/29)，
      • Hong Kong Telegraph (1881/06/16 – 1951/03/30)
      • Hong Kong Weekly Press (1895/01/03 – 1909/12/24)

Note some issues and pages may be omitted

• Overland China Mail was the weekly edition of China Mail, also containing articles from Evening Mail and Sunday Herald, and was published 1848 to 1941.

Overland China Mail is available on Findmypast, category "Newspapers & periodicals/British Newspapers ", with 'County' classified as Hong Kong China, with the same contents also available on the British Newspaper Archive, both pay websites, added Feb 9, 2021. The date range when added was January 11, 1853 to December 30, 1915 being 1853-1861, 1863-1894, 1897-1915 (with 1848–1916 planned), with details on a BNA page. For BNA, the 'Region' is classified as South Central China, and the 'County' is classified as Hong Kong, China. It is possible to browse individual editions on BNA, in addition to searching. To browse the Findmypast editions, use the filters under "Narrow your search results" (left hand side of the webpage) "By Newspaper" and "By Date".

• "Review of Development of Cemeteries in Hong Kong: 1841-1950" by Ko Tim-Keung Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol. 41 (2001), pp. 241-280 (40 pages). jstor.org. Register with jstor.org and read online for free. Limits apply.

"Voices from the Stones" by Ko Tim-keung. history.cuhk.edu.hk

• Name studies in a special form of real estate – an empirical study of the choice of christian names as recorded on gravestones by Chan Man Hin, Roger. A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Architecture, University of Hong Kong April 2010. Contains some old maps and images, some extracted from the 1997 book by Solomon Bard, see Records above.
• First two chapters, with Notes of The Happy Valley A History and Tour of the Hong Kong Cemetery by Ken Nicolson 2010 hkupress.hku.hk
• Challenging Dead. A Look into Foreigners’ Cemeteries in Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan by Gotelind Müller 2018. crossasia-repository.ub.uni-heidelberg.de.
• "The War Cemeteries and Memorials in Hong Kong" Commonwealth War Graves Commission Information Sheet. dva.gov.au
• David’s Gwulo: Old Hong Kong including
  • Cemeteries in Hong Kong
    • details of an online database of the 6,000+ burials in the Hong Kong Cemetery. For the database, see Records above.
  • [Plan of] Stanley Military Cantonment 1853
• Deaths Tell The Story Of Life In Old Hong Kong by Louisa Lim August 21, 2012 npr.org. An article about Patricia Lim and the Hong Kong Cemetery
• Hong Kong Memory Leisure and Cultural Services Department. Hong Kong Government. “Hong Kong Memory (HKM) is a multi-media web site that gives free and open access to digitized materials on Hong Kong’s history, culture and heritage”. Includes "Hong Kong Cemetery" Searchable and browsable database is created by Ms Patricia Lim, with images.
• China Families, previously called China Coast Family History, and part of the Chinese Maritime Customs project, University of Bristol. The website provides "a growing body of information about men and women of many different nationalities, professions and ages, who lived and worked in China between the 1850s and 1940s. These records have been drawn from government department lists, legal and diplomatic records, cemetery lists, and during research undertaken for a number of projects on the history of modern China and of the foreign relations of China". There is a Search facility and links to a number of online Directories.
• Hong Kong 1836-1844 in three parts, from "A Peoples' History 1793 – 1844 from the newspapers" houghton.hk. Extracts from Chinese region newspapers, Canton Register and Friend of China.
• Rudi Butt’s Hong Kong’s First. A blog about historical aspects of Hong Kong
• 1894 Plague
  • "The Great Plague of Hong Kong" by E G Pryor Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong: Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Hong Kong Branch (Hong Kong Branch)) 1975: 61-70. Pdf
  • "Colonialism versus Nationalism: The Plague of Hong Kong in 1894" by P T Lee, The Journal of Northeast Asian History, 2013, v. 10 n. 1, p. 97- 128
  • The K.S.L.I. and the Hong Kong Plague, 1894, now an archived webpage. discovershropshire.org.uk. K.S.L.I.: Hong Kong Plague Medal 1894 lightinfantry.org.uk
  • 'An unexampled calamity' - The Hong Kong Plague of 1894 by Stuart Braga. Originally in Casa de Macau Australia Newsletter, September 2007 and January 2008 issues. www.casademacau.org.au, archived page.
  • "The Hong Kong Plague Medal" by Moira Chan-Yeung and Keith W Poon Hong Kong Med J 2017 Jun;23(3):319–20.
    • There is reference to the book The Whitewash Brigade: The Hong Kong Plague of 1894 by J.J. Platt, M.E. Jones and A.K. Platt. Published by Dix Noonan Webb, 1998. This book is available at the British Library UIN: BLL01011169014 .
  • Also see Historical books online, below.
• "Three historic buildings at old Lei Yue Mun Barracks declared monuments" amo.gov.hk. The Barracks was one of the earliest and most important British Army fortifications in Hong Kong.
• The Regiments in China and Hong Kong 1860 - 1935 Battalions of The Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey) and the East Surrey Regiment. queensroyalsurreys.org.uk
• Britain's Gateway To Troubled China (1932) Short (1 minute) ‪British Pathé video on YouTube. Full title reads: "Hong Kong. Britain's gateway to troubled China. Loyal Indian Troops impress natives with magnificent spectacle of military precision and discipline." (retrieved 15 May 2014)
• H M S Tamar, R N Base, Hong Kong royalnavyresearcharchive.org.uk
• 1926 Submarines and HMS Titania gwulo.com
• Cyril H H Poole photographs including Submarines of the 4th Submarine Flotilla based at Hong Kong, Singapore, and Wei Hei Wei c 1930s. royalnavyresearcharchive.org.uk
• Listen to the 1981 interview with Robert Charles Beckett Anderson born 1895, British officer… served with 2nd Bn Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in New Zealand, Jamaica, China, Hong Kong and India, 1925-1935; served with Hong Kong Defence Force, 1936-1939 Imperial War Museums. Catalogue number 5251.

Second World War

• Hong Kong War Diary : Hong Kong Defenders, December 1941-August 1945 Includes Indian Army Units and Indian Medical Service
• The Battle of Hong Kong 1941: A note on the literature and the effectiveness of the defence by Lawrence W C Lai, University of Hong Kong , Discussion paper series, July 2000. Pdf.lib.hku.hk, now archived.

Maps

• Ordnance Map of Hong Kong by Thomas Collinson, 1846 National Library of Scotland.

Historical photographs online

• Photographic panoramas of Hong Kong, Canton, and Macau 1900-1930. University of Cambridge Digital Library.
• Digital images Marriott collection 1902-1923. The photographs are mainly of Hong Kong. British Empire & Commonwealth Collection, catalogue reference 1998/028 Bristol Museums.

Historical books online

• The Universities of Hong Kong Libraries Digital Initiatives includes
  • Hong Kong Government Reports Online 1842-1941 Click on 'Browse the titles' to see the titles available. Includes the Hong Kong Government Gazette 1842-1941 and the Blue Book 1871-1940. (Details of Blue Books gwulo.com.) Earlier editions of the Blue Books of Statistics are available at the National Archives, Kew record series CO 133, commencing with CO 133/1, for 1844.
    • In addition, Hongkong Blue Book for the year… broken range from 1887 to 1919; plus 1920, including "List of Officers" page 73. Archive.org.
  • Hong Kong & the West until 1860
  • China Through Western Eyes Originally covered the period until 1911, although the date of publication may have been later, but this may no longer apply. Includes titles about missionary work. Some items may be extracts only, and are classified Resource Type: Article
• ‪The Hongkong Directory: With List of Foreign Residents in China‬ 1859 Google Books
• The Directory & Chronicle for China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, Straits Settlements, Malay States, Siam, Netherlands India, Borneo, the Philippines, &c. For a range of editions to 1922, see China.
• The London and China Telegraph. Published weekly in London. Covers China, Hong Kong, Japan, Straits Settlements (Singapore, Penang), Batavia and perhaps a wider area. For editions 1860-1875 (missing 1862), see China.
• Online Directories from China Families University of Bristol. Mostly these focus on Shanghai, although there are some about Hong Kong.
• Who's Who in the Far East, 1906-7, June Achive.org
• The Colonial Office List for ... Includes a section on each country, and the Colonial Office List at the end of each volume. Google Books, HathiTrust Digital Library and Archive.org.

1862: First publication; 1867, 1877; 1878; 1879 pdf from Oxford University Library, may be slow to open, 1879 Google Books edition; 1880, Google Books, 1880, HT with rotatable pages; 1881; 1889; 1901; 1902; 1903; 1904; HathiTrust Digital Library editions to 1925 viewable in restricted areas such as North America: A and B

In addition, Colonial Office List, 1863 and Colonial Office List, 1870 are available in the findmypast (pay website) dataset "Britain, Directories & Almanacs" located in Newspapers, Directories & Social History/Directories & Almanacs.

FamilySearch has a catalogue entry for a series of microfiches of the Colonial Office List, (produced by Chadwyck-Healey, 1987), currently (2019/06) available at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, with however the potential to be digitised in the next few years, and perhaps be more widely available, or at least searchable. The same microfiche series may also be available at some other libraries, or to a very limited extent at some other FamilySearch Centres.

Colonial Office List (to 1925) and the later title The Dominions Office and Colonial Office List are available at the British Library UIN: BLL01002841625 and UIN: BLL01007173533

• Narrative of the Voyages and Services of the Nemesis, from 1840 to 1843; and of the Combined Naval and Military Operations in China: Comprising a Complete Account of the Colony of Hong Kong, and Remarks on the Character and Habits of the Chinese from Notes of W[illiam] H[enry] Hall, R N and W D Bernard 1844 Volume I, Volume II Google Books
• "Note on the Island of Hong-Kong" by A R Johnston .HM Deputy Superintendent of Trade, an article from Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 14. January 1, 1844 Archive.org
• Description of a view of the island and bay of Hong Kong… 1844 Archive.org
• Reports from Committees: Mortality of Troops (China) Session 1 February-10 August 1866 Volume XV. Ordered to be printed by The House of Commons 24 July 1866. Google Books.
• ‪The Treaty Ports of China and Japan: A Complete Guide to the Open Ports of Those Countries, Together with Peking, Yedo, Hongkong and Macao. Forming a Guide Book & Vade Mecum for Travellers, Merchants, and Residents in General‬ by William Frederick Mayers, N B Dennys, and Charles King 1867. Note: The maps have not been filmed. Google Books
• The China Sea Directory by the Hydrographic Office, Admiralty, London.
  • The China Sea Directory Volume I. Containing directions for the approaches to the China Sea and to Singapore, by the straits of Sunda, Banka, Gaspar, Carimata, Rhio, Varella, Durian, and Singapore by J. W. Reed , R N and J. W. King, R N. 1867 Google Books. 3rd edition 1886 Archive.org.
  • The China Sea Directory Volume II. Containing directions for the navigation of the China Sea, between Singapore and Hong Kong by J. W. Reed , R N and J. W. King, R N. 1868. British Library Digital Collection.
  • China Sea Directory Volume III. The Coasts of China from Hong Kong to the Korea etc Edited by Captain Charles J Bulloch, RN. 1874 Archive.org. 2nd edition 1884 Archive.org
• A directory for the navigation of the Indian Archipelago, China, and Japan, from the straits of Malacca and Sunda, and the passages east of Java. To Canton, Shanghai, the Yellow Sea, and Japan, with descriptions of the winds, monsoons, and currents, and general instructions for the various channels, harbours, etc by Alexander George Findlay 2nd edition 1878 Archive.org
• Plague
  • Further correspondence relative to the outbreak of bubonic plague at Hong Kong ... Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. August 1894 Archive.org
  • Report on the outbreak of bubonic plague in Hongkong, 1894, to the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography held at Budapest 1894 by Dr P B C Ayres, and Dr James A Lawson. Archive.org
  • Colonial Reports - Miscellaneous. No 6 Hong Kong : Bubonic Plague Presented to both Houses of Parliament June 1896. Archive.org
  • "The Plague. The Recent And Present Outbreaks In Hong-Kong and India" by Edward F. Willoughby The American Journal of the Medical Sciences March 1897. Archive.org.
  • Report on the causes and continuance of plague in Hongkong and suggestions as to remedial measures by WJ Simpson 1903 Archive.org
• English Life In China by Major Henry Knollys, Royal Artillery. 1885 Hathi Trust Digital Library. Also available Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. The first chapter is about Hong Kong.
• A Guide to Hongkong. With some remarks upon Macao and Canton by William Legge. Printed at Hongkong c 1893. British Library Digital Collection.
• Henry S. King & Co.'s Hand book for homeward-bound travellers from India, Australia and the East 1893 National Library of Australia. Includes the telegraph code to be used, as words or phrases more than ten letters are charged double. This company had an agent in Hong Kong, Kelly & Walsh, Limited.
• Europe in China: the history of Hongkong from the beginning to the year 1882 by E J Eitel, Inspector of Schools, Hongkong 1895 Archive.org.
• The Tourist's Guide to Hongkong, with short trips to the Mainland of China. [With plans, etc.] by R. C Hurley Hongkong 1897. British Library Digital Collection
• "Hong Kong" page 15 The Far Eastern Tropics, Studies in the Administration of Tropical Dependencies: Hong Kong, British North Borneo, Sarawak, Burma, the Federated Malay States, the Straits Settlements, French Indo-China, Java, the Phillipine Islands by Alleyne Ireland 1905 Archive.org
• Twentieth century impressions of Hong-kong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China: their history, people, commerce, industries, and resources by Arnold Wright 1908 Archive.org
• Historical and statistical abstract of the colony of Hongkong. 1911. Appears to be an official publication. There was an earlier edition in 1907. There appear to be later editions published 1922, (for the period to 1920), and 1932 (for the period to 1930).
• Hong Kong: A short history of the colony and an outline of the present political situation in China by A G M. 3rd edition revised c 1928 (or later) (catalogued as 1900) Archive.org
• British Rule In Eastern Asia: A Study of Contemporary Government and Economic development in British Malaya and Hong Kong by Lennox A Mills 1941. Issued under the auspices of the Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations International Research Series. File 1 some missing pages noted; File 2 Archive.org. Public Library of India Collection.
• A Traveler's Tale : Memories of India by Enid Saunders Candlin 1974. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library. The initial pages indicate the situation in Hong Kong to 1941 when the author’s husband a metallurgist/chemical engineer was transferred to India to work for the Inspectorate of Armaments in ordnance factories. By the same author (born in Shanghai, daughter of a tea merchant) The Breach in the Wall: A Memoir of Old China 1973. Available at the British Library UIN: BLL01000594031 A review kirkusreviews.com.
• Shanghai Lawyer by Norwood F. Allman 1943 HathiTrust Digital Library. Includes some chapters on internment by the Japanese in Hong Kong during WW2.
• Prisoner of the Japs by Gwen Drew 1943. HathiTrust Digital Library, Archive.org, Digital Library of India Collection. The author was an American journalist who was taken prisoner at the fall of Hong Kong.
• China to Me : a Partial Autobiography by Emily Hahn 1944. 2nd file, 3rd file 1944 Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library. Hahn became a New Yorker magazine writer. The latter half of the book covers her experiences in Hong Kong under Japanese control. About the book librarything.com. "classic memoir of her years in China remains remarkable for her insights into a tumultuous period and her frankness about her personal exploits. A proud feminist and fearless traveler, she set out for China in 1935 and stayed through the early years of the Second Sino-Japanese War..."

Hong Kong Holiday by Emily Hahn 1946. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library.

• Empire's End : a history of the Far East from High Colonialism to Hong Kong by John Keay 1997. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library.

Fiction

• Tai-Pan; a novel of Hong Kong by James Clavell 1966. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library.

Journals online

Hong Kong Journals online The University of Hong Kong Libraries. Click on 'Browse the titles' to see all the titles available. Included are the following:

• Online editions of Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 1961-2007
  • "Transactions of the China Medico-Chirurgical Society" [Hong Kong], 1845-46 by H. A. Rydings Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Volume 13 (1973)
  • "Incident between the Hong Merchants and the Super-cargoes of the British East India Company in Canton, 1811" by J. L. Cranmer-Byng Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Volume 15 (1975)
• "The Colony of Hongkong - From a Lecture on Reminiscences of a long Residence in the East"by Rev. Jas. Legge, D.D., LL.D. The China Review, or notes & queries on the Far East Volume 1 No. 3 (1872)
• "Historical Outline of Medical Missions at Canton, Hongkong and Macao" The China Review, or notes & queries on the Far East Volume 4 No. 5 (1876)