You would think, given the evolution of Hong Kong’s road network – slow, slow, slow – and Hong Kong’s intricate coastline and 263 islands, that ferries would have been a constant in Hong Kong’s story. They were and they weren’t. They were if all one means by ‘ferry’ is something that floats that carries any A to any B. But if one means what we’re all familiar with, timetabled services run by companies with several identical or similar vessels, the story is more nuanced. Ferries were right in there at the start with respect to linking Hong Kong to the PRD. But as far as links within HK itself - what most of us think of as a ferry - they’re actually quite a late comer. By the time the first ferry service of the sort we’d all recognize started up, modern Hong Kong was over half a century old. How come? It’s an intriguing story of changing maritime technology on the one hand and, on the other, the effects of socio-economic change on demand for properly organized local public transport ferry services.

Bare text can only tell us so much. How many of us have ground our teeth when we’re reading a book that cries out for a map…and doesn’t have one? But, assisted by a bit of fossicking in archives, maps can also tell stories all by themselves. Maps of Hong Kong tells lots of them. Like the way the small island everyone these days knows as Ap Lei Pai came to have that name…and how it’s the wrong one. Or how a reservoir for a flour mill came to be called Little Hawaii. Or that Round Island (Ngan Chau) off Repulse Bay got be charted as Ma Kong for 80 years and longer. Or why Tai Mo Shan was once called Lantau Falso. Or that Violet Hill on Hong Kong Island nearly became Mount Hamilton. And, of course, that Hong Kong Island wasn’t called that at all.

1. Wrecks were pretty commonplace in 1892 and were at best usually a nine days wonder. However, the loss of the P&O Company’s SS Bokhara was something else. News stories ran all over the world for almost two years. A presentation silver plate was sent by Queen Victoria to the head of the rescuers of the few survivors. There was involvement by the Governor of Hong Kong, a visit by the C-in-C of the Royal Navy’s China Station and the presence of three ships of the Royal Navy. A publicly subscribed memorial was put up by the British Army’s Royal Engineers on an uninhabited islet in China. Memorial windows were dedicated in the cathedrals of Shanghai and Hong Kong. But why? Well, the wreck drowned most of the Hong Kong interport cricket team on their way home from Shanghai. And it was carrying gold bullion for the HSBC and the Sassoon family worth almost HK$500,000,000 today. Money and cricket featured large in the British Empire. Cricket representing supposed Imperial values. Money representing the reality.