Hong Kong’s Public Works in an Age of Small Government: The Photographic Evidence, 1869-1945

Abstract

It has long been acknowledged that many of the major development projects in early colonial Hong Kong were joint ventures between the public and private sectors. While the colonial government’s Department of Public Works exercised statutory control over all construction projects from the earliest days of the colony, many of these schemes originated and were financed by individuals and companies who has large stakes in Hong Kong’s burgeoning prosperity. Much has been written about these partnerships but surprisingly little serious research has been attempted on the visual representation of such development projects, despite the rich archive of images available in Hong Kong. In his latest book, Old Hong Kong, Peter Cunich uses a stunning collection of photographic images of colonial Hong Kong from the FormAsia Collection to offer some fresh insights into the colony’s early history. Many of these images, never before published, add significantly to our knowledge of Hong Kong’s built environment and social milieu from the 1860s to the early 1940s, but they also create numerous problems of identification and interpretation. In this talk, Dr Cunich will focus on early reclamation and harbour projects to suggest how historical photographs might be used to enrich our understanding of colonial governance in Hong Kong.