Talk:History of Hong Kong (1800s–1930s)

Intro
"This article details the history of Colonial Hong Kong." Unfortunately, this claim appears to be false. Should we perhaps change it to the future tense? - Nat Krause 13:33, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I totally agree. This article should be the first colonial era before the japanese occupation and that's it.  Everything else to follow should belong in other articles.  I am practically ready to split the articles up.  It is overlapping too many other articles after the 1930s. Benjwong 07:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

GA on hold
I have reviewed the article and have found it on the whole to be of a good quality. However there are several points, suggestions etc that I would like remedied before passing it as GA quality. Please see What is a good article? for more info. In the case of this article point two is most important to get to GA.


 * Firstly, this is not neccessary for GA, but please expand the lead section to two paragraphs, as given the size of the article, it should really be two. Check out Lead section for more details.


 * In the history section - in Zexu would be the Chinese commissioner who wrote a letter to Queen Victoria in 1839 taking a stance against the acceptance of opium in trade. He confiscated more than 20,000 chests of opium already at the port and supervised their destruction - please add a reference for this to support the fact of 20,000 chests and the stance against opium.


 * References in the article need to be tidied. For example - [6]. Possession Street still exists to mark the event[6], although its Chinese name is 水坑口街 ("Mouth of the ditch Street"). References i.e. the [6] need to go after a full stop or end of sentance. They should not go midway, in this case after event, but rather at the end of the sentance. Another example - According to the census of 1865, Hong Kong had a population of 125,504, of which some 2,000 were Americans and Europeans[8]. The reference goes after the full stop. There are some other examples of this in the article. Please look carefully.


 * Please expand or clarify this sentance in the population section - Other mainland floods, typhoons and famine would also play a role - furthermore any specifics?


 * Please reference the following - In 1914 despite an exodus of 60,000 Chinese fearing an attack on the colony after World War I, Hong Kong's population continues to increase from 530,000 in 1916 to 725,000 in 1925 and 1.6 million by 1941.


 * The entire integration section needs referencing - The establishment of the free port made Hong Kong a major entrepôt from the start, attracting people from China and Europe alike. Though the society remained segregated and polarized due to language barriers. A de facto segregation existed between the European minority and the Chinese majority. Slow rise of a British-educated Chinese upper class of the late 19th Century forced the creation of racial laws such as the Peak Reservation Ordinance, which prevented Chinese from living in upscale Victoria Peak. The Chinese society had little to no official governmental influence throughout much of the early years. Some of the small number of Chinese elites that the British governors could rely on included Sir Kai Ho and Robert Hotung. Furthermore please expand or clarify the last sentance - who are these people, how, what, when!?


 * One of the most common breakfast was congee with fish and barley. - should be breakfasts.


 * Please reference - In the mid 1800s many of the merchants would sell silk, jade and consult feng shui to open shops that favour better spiritual arrangements.


 * Please reference - By 1880 Hong Kong's port would handle 27% of the mainland's export and 37% of imports.


 * Please reference - ''A British traveller, Isabella Bird, described Hong Kong in the 1870s as a colony filled with comforts and entertainment only a Victorian society would be able to enjoy.


 * Please expand and reference - The Hong Kong Club at Queen's Road was also a hangout for established tai-pans. Please include what a tai pan is briefly (as people wont kknow without looking at a seperate article). or change to something like influential businessmen instead.


 * Please expand the education section, it is rather short. Furthermore there is not one reference.


 * In the law and order section you DEFINATELY need to reference the following - the lack of intimidation may have been the leading cause for the continual rise in crime.


 * The natural disasters section is rather limited - only one paragraph, suggesting merging elsewhere or expanding the section.


 * Please reference the source of this - The first flight service from Imperial Airways would become available by 1937 at a price of 288 pounds per ticket.


 * This definately needs a reference or to be removed - King Edward Hotel was considered one of the best in the era.


 * Please given attribution to the source of the following two paragraphs at the end - ''The role of Hong Kong as a political safe haven for Chinese political refugees further cemented its status, and few serious attempts to revert its ownership were launched in the early 1900s. Both Chinese Communist and Nationalist agitators found refuge in the territory, when they did not actively participate in the turmoil in China. However, the dockworkers strikes in the 1920s and 1930s were widely attributed to the Communists by the authorities, and caused a backlash against them. A strike in 1920 was ended with a wage increase of HKD 32 cents.

When modern China began after the falling of the last dynasty, one of the first political statements made in Hong Kong was the immediate change from long queue hairstyles to short haircuts. In 1938 Canton fell to the hands of the Japanese, Hong Kong was considered a strategic military outpost for all trades in the far east, though Winston Churchill assured that Hong Kong was an "impregnable fortress". It was taken as a reality check response since the British Army actually stretched too thin to battle on two fronts.''

Please let me know when these have been answered. If you need any further info/help or comments etc please feel free to message me. LordHarris 19:58, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I am leaving a marker here in case someone else other than LordHarris will review it the second time around within the 7 day period. I have also left a message on his talkpage.  Benjwong 21:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Good work, I beleive the article now meets GA criteria. A few suggestions for improvement would be to expand a few sections if there is adequate material e.g. education, law/order and resources. I would also recommend expanding the image captions in the article, as although suitable for GA, I think they would need to be more detailed for A or FA class. LordHarris 21:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Tenses
The "would be"s all need changed to was, it _did_ happen, it's not yet to happen. Chris 01:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Colonialhongkongarms.png
Image:Colonialhongkongarms.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 19:20, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Confused time-line
This article's confusing - it pruports to cover the 1800s - 1930s, yet much of the detail comes from later on - it mentions Elizabeth II for example. As there doesn't seem to be an article History of Colonial Hong Kong (1945-1997) why not rename this article History of Colonial Hong Kong? YeshuaDavid (talk) 22:13, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * This article stops in the 1930s. The template on the side is supposed to say 1940s, 50s, 60s, etc.  Some good faith edits were made earlier by another user but disconnected all the other decades, which is why this is so confusing.  I have tried to restore it. Benjwong (talk) 22:54, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The current title, "History of Colonial Hong Kong (1800s–1930s)", not only seems to have had a wrong capitalisation for a long time (colonial should be lower case c because "Colonial Hong Kong" doesn't seem to be widely established as a proper noun), but there seems to be WP:OR issues with the years. Under whose criteria does the colonial period only extend to the 1930s? This article is meant to cover Hong Kong under British rule, which ended in 1997, not in the 1930s. Those sub-articles of Hong Kong in the 1940s, 50s, etc. are only there because this article can't accommodate all that info. "History of colonial Hong Kong" would be a better title, but an even better one would simply be "British Hong Kong" because it's the far more WP:COMMONNAME for this era. My move was reverted, so unless there's a good argument otherwise, I'll be moving it back. Spellcast (talk) 05:35, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The title stopped at 1930 not because the article couldn't fit all the material up to 1990s. It stopped at 1930 because the Japanese era in the 1940s was a discontinued gap. The post-Japanese HK was just different. This article wasn't supposed to cover anything after 1930s.  The template made a brief mention of 1940s, that is it. Also British HK was not a more common name.  HK was always referred to as a colony. It was too far and disconnected geographically to be counted as a British city.  The laws to a British city vs a colony are entirely different. Benjwong (talk) 06:01, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The term "British Hong Kong" simply refers to the colony under British administration from 1841 to 1997. It's undoubtedly the most common or appropriate name for that period (I'll invite third party comments if you think otherwise). There should be a main article for that era like other colonial articles such as British Raj, British Ceylon, British Guiana, British Honduras, etc. Japan's occupation of HK in WWII doesn't mean we have to divide the British administrative period into different articles, which makes the info unnecessarily fragmented (and more confusing as the first user posted above). Spellcast (talk) 07:52, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * British Raj is one of the few that always unanimously begin with the "British" prefix all the time. A better comparison would be Portugese Macau or Spanish Puerto rico, which we don't have.  I also do not believe this name is more common than Colonial HK or even more culturally known Victorian HK for the pre-1930s era. Benjwong (talk) 15:58, 23 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There isn't a separate article on Macau under Portuguese rule because the info seems to be well-integrated at History of Macau. But if there was, "Portuguese Macau" or "Macau (Portugal)" would be fine and consistent with other articles like Portuguese India, Angola (Portugal), Mozambique (Portugal), or Portuguese Malacca. Macau's history is covered in one article, but the British Hong Kong period has many articles, which would be better organised if there was a main article that summarised the British period and linked to the more specific pages like 1950s in Hong Kong, 1960s, etc. As for the common name, British HK returns far more results than Colonial HK . Spellcast (talk) 06:48, 24 May 2010 (UTC)


 * You are doing a google search on anything British with Hong Kong. Of course that is going to show far more results. They don't even have to be the same sentence. The sentence can be "A british beer in Hong Kong" and that would count toward your hit.  This is kind of nonsense. How about a law in the past that said HK was to be called "British HK" and not "Colonial HK" or "Victorian HK". Something more certain. Benjwong (talk) 04:48, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The pre-1997 passport just plain refer the territory as "Hong Kong" btw. Benjwong (talk) 04:53, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) There's still more results if you search the exact string "british hong kong" vs. "colonial hong kong". Google may not be the ultimate solution to finding the most common name, but it's a good starting point. It was obviously just called "Hong Kong" pre-97, but since this page can't use that title, "British Hong Kong" is the most appropriate disambiguator. Per the criteria at AT, that title is more recognisable, concise, and consistent with similar colonial articles (as linked earlier). Spellcast (talk) 07:17, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The point is not about google results. If we only rely on books.google, "british HK" had 721 hits, "colonial HK" had 604 hits.  That is a very small difference considering not every book available is scanned. Even worse is rely on one search engine and ignoring everything else. I am trying to see why the Colonial name is bad, when this era is definitely very Victorian and Colonial.  If anything we should just rename this page to History of Hong Kong (1800s–1930s) to follow the official passports.  Unless there is a project plan to name all areas governed to the same prefix like "British Bermuda" or "British Gibraltar", this move is very inconsistent.  Last time this GA article was moved with no consensus at all, it is bad. Benjwong (talk) 06:16, 26 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There's nothing wrong with the name Colonial HK, but given the choice between that and British HK, the latter would be better for reasons I've already explained. The British colonial period is obviously a key part of HK's history that there should be a main article summarising that era instead of only having fragmented periods across different pages. It's good that this article is a GA, but it's important to get the fundamentals in place first. The infobox summarises info from 1841-1997 and I don't see why this article can't too. Consensus isn't emerging, so I'll probably start a move proposal and leave a note at WP:HK and Talk:Hong Kong. Spellcast (talk) 12:47, 26 May 2010 (UTC)


 * For no apparent reason merging 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s article with this one is a bad idea. I don't know why you are targeting these articles.  Among all the British colony articles, these are seriously pretty well done. Benjwong (talk) 04:35, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * An idea comes to mind. If this was moved to "British Hong Hong", then new info would have to be added to summarise the period from WWII to 1997. Alternatively, a new article can be started at British Hong Kong (currently a redirect) that summarises the period from the 1800s-1997, and this article (that covers the 1800s-1930s) can be linked for more detailed info. In the same way that the articles on the 50s, 60s, etc. are linked from History of Hong Kong to provide further info, so too can this page be linked in British Hong Kong for further details. (BTW, I didn't suggest merging the decades in one article. I merely proposed an article that summarises the entire British colonial period with a link to those decades for further info). Spellcast (talk) 12:37, 27 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Also, if that was done, I'd support moving this article to History of Hong Kong (1800s–1930s). Spellcast (talk) 12:46, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I see this as the most amount of work requested to reach the same result in the end. The main Hong Kong page currently has 1 link to the History of Hong Kong which links to every historical period already. There is no point in creating a new article only to lump together info from 5 different already well-done article. Instead of starting a WP:HK proposal, I think you should start a WikiProject England discussion to rename all colonies to British prefix. Basically don't single this one GA article out. British Bermuda, British singapore etc. The list is long. Benjwong (talk) 18:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Out of all the British colonial territory articles that have substantial content, this is the only one (as far as I can tell) without a main article dedicated to the entire colonial period. I doubt you'd come to agree regardless of what my arguments are, so the next step would be for me to either start a move proposal or create British Hong Kong. (If I did the latter, you'd have to take it to WP:AFD if you disagree, and it's likely the result would either be a keep or a merge to here, in which case, this page would have to be moved to cover the post 1930s). Spellcast (talk) 08:01, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * For the meantime, this article should be moved to the lower case c in colonial (I can't find any evidence that "Colonial Hong Kong" is widely established as a proper noun) or History of Hong Kong (1800s–1930s). The first should be done at the very least, but I take it there's no objection to the second title? Spellcast (talk) 09:13, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Renaming the title or lowercases does not fix the confusion. This began as a chronological set of historic articles. (1800s-1930s) -> 1940s -> 1950s -> 1960s -> 1970s etc all linked to one History of Hong Kong article. What led to the confusion is the Infobox former country template. It should have stopped all info at Andrew Caldecott, a 1930s governor. The reason why you are confused is because an article that ends in the 1930s has info from later decades. If anything we should just cleanout the later era info. Then simply add a template in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s etc pages. Benjwong (talk) 04:00, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I know the content only goes up to the Japanese occupation despite the infobox summarising info up to 1997. Regardless of our disagreements in having a unified article summarising the entire history, the current title needs to be changed. Unless there's specific objection, I'll change it to the lower case c or History of Hong Kong (1800s–1930s). Spellcast (talk) 14:24, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

GA Sweeps
This article has been reviewed under GA Sweeps and is found to maintain its GA quality. OhanaUnitedTalk page 00:18, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved to alternative suggested title Kotniski (talk) 07:23, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

History of colonial Hong Kong → British Hong Kong — Please see Pædia 13:15, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Survey

 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.


 * Support per WP:TITLE. "British Hong Kong" is more concise, recognisable, and consistent with similar colonial articles such as British Ceylon, British Raj, British Honduras etc. The article's content currently only covers the period from the 1800s to the start of WWII, yet the infobox misleadingly gives the impression that it covers the entire period. There's no reason why this article can't summarise the entire colonial period. Spellcast (talk) 17:04, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
 * A new page at British Hong Kong instead of moving this article would also be fine with me (see below). Spellcast (talk) 16:05, 5 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Support - sensible move BritishWatcher (talk) 17:30, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Support - I agree with Spellcast. Pædia 23:14, 28 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose - What is causing the confusion is that this is supposed to be a timeline era article (1800s-1930s). See where it fits in Template:History of Hong Kong. It DOES NOT cover all the other eras, 1940s, 50s, 60s etc. In fact it should move back to History of Colonial Hong Kong (1800s-1930s) to fit in the timeline. Benjwong (talk) 18:04, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
 * There should be an article summarising the colonial period, with links to those decades for more specific info. For example, Colonial history of the United States summarises the whole colonial era, with links to specific time periods such as History of the United States (1918–1945). No reason why it can't be the same here. Spellcast (talk) 18:55, 28 August 2010 (UTC)


 * History of Hong Kong is that summary article! What you are looking for is an exclusive "British history of HK" article. Recentism saids the emphasis should not be placed exclusively on the most recent years. If done right, HK spent considerable time as Xin'an (New Peace) and other eras. It is unbalanced now. You want to make it even more unbalanced. Benjwong (talk) 19:59, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Nothing is being unbalanced. For former colonies, it's standard to have a main article covering its whole period. If a certain time period can't fit in the main article, it can be split into a new page. However, this article can expand to summarise post-1930s info without needing a split. Spellcast (talk) 23:54, 28 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I have no problem with an article covering 1800s–1930s, but it may be unnecessary, as they are already included in Opium Wars, British Hong Kong, etc. If it be preferred, more links could be included in . Pædia 23:14, 28 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Look at Template:History of the United States. See how the colonial era got its own article.  This article is along the same line.  What you are proposing would be equal to moving Colonial history of the United States to History of United States, and leave it that way permanently. What I suggest is you guys create a separate British Hong Kong article and link all the existing articles into it. Take template:Infobox former country with you. Afterwards I can make the change in History of Hong Kong to make one big link to British Hong Kong.  Similar to how there is one big link to History of Hong Kong under Imperial China. Benjwong (talk) 19:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That would be fine with me. My draft of British Hong Kong at User:Spellcast/sandbox should be done in 1-2 weeks (although if anyone wants to start that article off first, feel free to go ahead). Spellcast (talk) 21:44, 29 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Support per Spellcast's reasons, consistency with other former British colony articles. Ta-Va-Tar (discuss–what?) 05:07, 30 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose - The article should be to History of Hong Kong (1800s–1930s) or something similar. There are individual articles covering each decade of the history of Hong Kong from the 1950s to the 1990s.  A "British Hong Kong" article will have to cover all of the content in the article.  Secondly, I question whether or not "British Hong Kong" is in fact a more common name than "Colonial Hong Kong".  We should be using the most common name.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 12:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Weak Support - I think the arguments for renaming it are pretty good, although "Colonial Hong Kong" seems reasonable too - I think both are fairly widely used. I do, however, think that "history of" can be safely removed whichever name is settled on.  TastyCakes (talk) 22:19, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm I've just read the article again, and it seems to be pretty limited in scope at the moment. I think if it were to be moved to "British Hong Kong", it should be more of a summary page of each period.  The 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s would have overviews with "main article" links to those already existing pages.  If you guys settle on not renaming it, I think the "1800s to 1930s" should be added to the title, because it's a bit ambiguous right now as to what it's covering.  TastyCakes (talk) 22:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Any additional comments:

Even if this move proposal fails, British Hong Kong can be changed from a redirect into an article covering the whole colonial period. In that case, this article should be moved back to History of colonial Hong Kong (1800s–1930s) and have its misleading infobox removed. Spellcast (talk) 23:54, 28 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Exactly. The issue seems to be with, not with the infobox or the name. Pædia 01:24, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

To finalise, I think there's consensus that a British Hong Kong page should exist, although it doesn't necessarily have to be started by moving this page. I think the closing admin can safely close this proposal without any page move. After this closes, anyone can make the uncontroversial move of this article to History of Hong Kong (1800s–1930s), and an overview of the entire colonial period can be started at British Hong Kong. Spellcast (talk) 16:05, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposal
Currently, there may not be enough text covering 1800–1839 in History of Hong Kong nor British Hong Kong to warrant its own article. Opium Wars already covers 1839–1860, and British Hong Kong can cover 1841–1997. I propose a change to History of Hong Kong at History of Hong Kong/testcases or silimar. Pædia 16:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If there is a whole new British Hong Kong article to serve as an overview of Hong Kong between 1841-1941 & 1945-1997 that would be wonderful, but to build from scratch an encyclopedic account of Hong Kong's transformation in these ~150 years as a British colony shouldn't be something we commit to lightly, unless we are blessed to have some enthusiasts among us volunteering to work on it for quite some time. I agree we should have an interim solution in place before such an article materialises.
 * I am keenly aware that the current article's skew towards the 1800s-1930s period when I moved it to History of colonial Hong Kong, but maybe the Infobox former country template on the top right convinced me that this article has an intention to cover the entire colonial era, so I moved it in the hope that it will be enriched over time. Perhaps to my unawareness the existing consensus is this article serves only to cover the period 1800s-1930s. In that case I have made a mistake. But then renaming this article to British Hong Kong would be inappropriate too, unless we at least squeeze in some photos of skyscrapers (plus lots of text) next to that photo of a woman in 1890?!
 * So yes, I am with the crowd here in moving this article to History of Hong Kong (1800s–1930s) (to me History of colonial Hong Kong (1800s–1930s) should be a redirect). And History of colonial Hong Kong could be a redirect to British Hong Kong. In the mean time, I think we'd best maintain the status quo, and leave a at the top of this article to let potential contributors know of our plans (consensus).--Computor (talk) 21:29, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think there's enough consensus to make the move. This is definitely not an article about the entire history of British/colonial Hong Kong, as everyone seems to be agreed.--Kotniski (talk) 07:19, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Any information on this?
On the Wikipedia page for 1900s (Decade), the following is listed as a natural disaster: "September 18, 1906 — A typhoon and tsunami kill an estimated 10,000 in Hong Kong" but this is not listed on this page or on the Hong Kong page. Shouldn't there be some information about this on this page?Jtyroler (talk) 19:50, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on History of Hong Kong (1800s–1930s). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070927210104/http://www.lubbockonline.com/news/041197/base.htm to http://www.lubbockonline.com/news/041197/base.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090213231122/http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=&art_id=41861&sid=&con_type=1&d_str=19971113&sear_year=1997 to http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=&art_id=41861&sid=&con_type=1&d_str=19971113&sear_year=1997
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070418054929/http://www.info.gov.hk/police/hkp-text/english/history/history_01.htm to http://www.info.gov.hk/police/hkp-text/english/history/history_01.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 17:56, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Redundant article
Just came across this article for the first time. IMO, it is a low-quality, rather badly written, and useless duplicate of British Hong Kong. It should be merged with British Hong Kong.--Lubiesque (talk) 11:07, 2 June 2018 (UTC)