Description

SHANGHAI GUOGUANG SHUJU, Publisher.

Shanghai: 國光書局 [Guoguang Shuju], [circa 1920].

This rare, ephemeral bilingual (Chinese-English) street plan of Victoria (Central), showcases the governmental and commercial epicentre of Hong Kong in impressive detail, as it appeared around 1915. Orientated with the south on top, the map shows the cityscape rising from Hong Kong Harbour to the apex of Victoria Peak. It delineates and labels every street an impressively outlines and names every major public edifice and institution, while named quays line the waterfront.

The famous ‘Peak Tram’ is shown to climb the slopes to the Peak Hotel and the great mansions that overlook the harbour. Below, the map depicts numerous key sites, such as the Government House; Supreme Court; City Hall; University of Hong Kong; Cricket Ground; Royal Navy Yard, the HQ of the Royal Navy in the Far East; numerous military barracks; churches, convents, mosques, markets and hospitals, etc.; in all providing a stellar record of Victoria during a vibrant historical period.
The inset, in the lower right corner, 新界全圖 [Complete Map of the New Territories], depicts the entirety of Hong Kong’s domain.

The map was published in Shanghai by the 國光書局 [Guoguang shuju / ‘National Glory Press’], a prominent house which specialized in reproductions of historical paintings, calligraphy, and artworks, while dabbling in cartography. It was not a surprise that a map of Hong Kong was issued in Shanghai, as the two cities then (as they, once again, today are) closely connected by commence, with many thousands of people travelling between the centres annually.

The present example of the map features a small contemporary manuscript annotation in pink crayon highlighting ‘Blake Pier’, noting that was where ships to Japan docked.
The present work faithfully follows the content of an English-language-only map printed in Hong Kong as a promotional piece for the Peak Hotel around 1915. While that map, like the present work, is undated, Jonathan Wattis and Peter Geldart, who know the city’s history well, write that “The date of the map can be estimated by the appearance of the Supreme Court on Chater Road and the Magistracy on Arbuthnot Road, which were built in 1912 and 1914 respectively, whereas the extension of the Central Police Station, built in 1919, is absent” (Wattis & Geldart, ‘Expansion & Reclamation’, p. 45). While this remains true for the present map, there was perhaps something of a time lag between the publication of the Peak Hotel map and the Guoguang Shuju of Shanghai production. Wattis dated an example of the present map he once had in a sales catalogue as circa 1915, while some others date the map as late as 1933 (but without giving any evidence for this assertion). Here we will provisionally date the map as circa 1920, leaving the more precise definition of the matter as a point for future research.

The present example of the map features a printed pastedown price label of ‘50 Cents’, in the lower margin, which was intended for the Hong Kong market, and covers up its original Republic of China price. While not the case here, most of the other examples of the map of which we are aware have the contemporary pastedown label of ‘Brewer & Co. / Pedder Street’, a prominent Hong Kong bookseller, in the lefthand margin, which covers up the imprint of ‘Shanghai Guoguang Shuju’, such that some have miscatalogued the map as to its publisher.

A Note on Rarity

The present map is rare, consistent with such fragile ephemeral works. We can trace 3 institutional examples, held by the Harvard University Library; National Maritime Museum Greenwich; and the Beinecke Library, Yale University. Moreover, we are aware of 3 examples as appearing on the market in the last decade or so.

References: Harvard University Library: G7824.H5E635 1900 .Z8; National Maritime Museum Greenwich: G271:8/15; Beinecke Library, Yale University: 5681 V66 1920; OCLC: 741365239, 537997549; Eunice Mei Feng SENG, Resistant City: Histories, Maps and the Architecture of Development (2020), p. 343; Cf. Jonathan WATTIS & Peter GELDART, ‘Expansion & Reclamation: A Brief History of Urban Hong Kong in Street Plans’, IMCOS Journal, no. 155 (December 2018), pp. 40-8, esp. p. 45.