In 1901, near the end of the 20 years of priority use of the HKWDC’s Admiralty Dock by the Royal Navy, both the Naval Dockyard (Admiralty today) and the Taikoo Dock of John Swire & Sons (now Swire Group) commenced construction work on-site at Wellington Barracks (Admiralty today) and in Quarry Bay (Taikoo Shing today). That was shortly before the HKWDC proposed to extend its agreement for the expansion of Kowloon dock. Water was admitted to the New Naval Yard on 15 June 1907, and to the Taikoo Dock on 22 June 1907.[14] The Taikoo Dock occupied an area of 52.5 acres, with 20 acres of reclaimed land composed of 1.6 million cubic yards of decomposed and hard granite. The construction work involved 2,500 to 3,000 local labourers laying 90,000 cubic yards of concrete. The work was designed by John Scott of Greenock. On his death in 1903, his brother R. Sinclair Scott took up his position. The resident engineer for the work was Donald Macdonald, who arrived in Hong Kong in 1902. The dock was 787 feet by 88 feet, with a water depth of 31 feet 6 inches at spring tides, and was designed to accommodate liners of the Oceanic class. Without exception, the priority use by the Royal Navy was written down in the lease conditions. The Taikoo Dock received its first steamship, Sungkiang, on 3 October 1908.[15]
After the Second World War, business shifted from the sea to the shore, and property development became essential for dockyard management. The first property development of the HKWDC was a building on Bulkeley Street named the United Building in memory of the UDC. On the other hand, in order to cut down fixed overheads and eliminate duplication of facilities, John Swire & Sons and the HKWDC opted to merge. The announcement was made on 3 July and 14 September 1972 respectively, and the merger took place on 1 January 1973. Representatives from John Swire & Sons and the HKWDC would alternate as the chairman of the newly formed Hongkong United Dockyards Limited (UDL). The Cosmopolitan Dock was phased out in 1971, and 15 residential blocks (now the Cosmopolitan Estate) were built on its site. The UDL was run efficiently and obtained 50 acres of land on the western Tsing Yi Island (now beneath Tsing Yi Bridge) in 1976, in exchange for making way for land development in Hung Hom and Quarry Bay.[16] On 27 April 1977 a $9.9 million construction contract for the Tsing Yi Dock was signed with Nishimatsu. The new facility was to allow the docking of 100,000-ton ships with a depth of 14 metres.[17] It was expected to be in operation in April 1978, with the whole project completed by 1980. At the end of 1977, a ceremony was held to celebrate the acquisition of a floating dock in Sasebo, Nagasaki in Japan. It was named Whampoa in memory of its mother Company in Whampoa. The docks began operation in 1978, and the removal of the Kowloon and Taikoo Docks to Tsing Yi was completed on schedule in 1980. The Taikoo Dock was closed in 1978, whilst the Kowloon Docks were closed in 1980. All that remains of the Taikoo Dock is the foundation stone crafted by the Chief Engineer, Donald Macdonald, which can now be seen at Cityplaza, Taikoo Shing. With the Kowloon Docks vacated, construction of Whampoa Garden was completed in 1985. The shopping complex in Whampoa Garden was designed to look like a ship from the outside, the only feature reminiscent of the Kowloon Docks.
Notes:
- [14]Public Works Department, Report of the Director of Public Works for the year 1907, paragraph 32.
- [15]Taikoo Dockyard & Engineering Company of Hong Kong Ltd., Fifty years of shipbuilding and repairing in the Far East (London: Technical advertising service, 1953), p.12.
- [16]The Kung Sheung Daily News, 28 August 1976.
- [17]Wah Kiu Yat Pao, 27 April 1977.
