Hong Kong 
Maritime Museum

The arrival of a large, ornate oceangoing Chinese junk in the East India Docks of London on 28th March 1848 must have been an astonishing sight, for never before had a traditional Chinese junk sailed around the Cape of Good Hope to appear, unannounced, in the British Isles.

The Keying, a junk of nearly 700 gross tons, 160 ft. in length, with matting sails battened with bamboo, was commanded by Captain Charles A. Kellett and carried a crew of about 38 Chinese, a dozen British and a special envoy, the Mandarin Hesing. The objective of this historic voyage was to sail to England as a symbolic tribute to Queen Victoria, linking the Crown Colony of Hong Kong to England after the signing of the Treaty of Nanking on August 29th 1842. Queen Victoria visited the Keying in the port of London and the Mandarin Hesing was then invited to the opening of the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace on 1 May 1851. He duly attended, dressed in his formal Chinese regalia, as a member of the group of official dignitaries.

This is just one of many historical events depicted in the Hong Kong Maritime Museum HKMM) which will be formally opened at the end of May by Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa.

This new maritime museum is housed in one of the Hong Kong’s oldest historic buildings. Murray House (see photograph) was built in 1844 as a British army’s officers’ mess. Know then as Murray Barracks, it was originally sited overlooking the harbour in Central Hong Kong, where I. M. Pei’s super-modern Bank of China Building now stands. Twenty years ago, the building was carefully dismantled stone by stone, column by column, every piece being painstakingly preserved and stored. It was re-erected recently, at a spot overlooking the scenic bay at Stanley on the south side of Hong Kong Island, and it seemed a most appropriate and auspicious home for the fledgling Hong Kong Maritime Museum.

The Hong Kong Government recently declared that it can no longer be the sole source of funds for the building of museums in Hong Kong. So in December 2003, members of the Hong Kong shipowning and shipping community were asked for their support for a new maritime museum. It seemed fitting that they should be asked to raise funds for such an enterprise, given the fundamental role which ships, trade and the now world-famous harbour has played in the spectacular development of Hong Kong over 160 years, and in its consequential growth from a group of insignificant islands inhabited by pirates, convicts and stonecutters, into the largest container port in the world and a leading shipowning centre. .

The Museum relates the history of boats, junks and shipping into and from the South China Coast (Shanghai-Hong Kong-Canton range) over the past 2000 years. The Chinese junk, which had served China well through almost two thousand years of domestic and growing inter-regional trade, is depicted and explained in all phases of the development of its unique form. It was used in maritime voyages for the purposes of passenger transport, floating embassies, voyages of tribute, exploration, warfare and scientific research, aside from its principal role as a cargo vessel and workhorse upto barely ten years ago.

The Museum vividly portrays, in its own unique style, how important international maritime endeavor was to China. Japan had forged cultural ties with China as early as the time of Christ – the Han period in China - and in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), when Japan was building so called Delegation ships, based on the Chinese hull form. Between 603 and 874 AD, nineteen official delegations journeyed from Japan to China, some consisting of as many as 650 members, typically accommodated in a fleet of 4 ships. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1664), eighty-four Delegation ships were made to China in a period of a hundred years,

The traders during the Sung Dynasty (960-1276) were forced by the aggression of the Liao and Jin tribes in the North, and the Xi-Xia in the Northwest, to abandon traditional land routes to the Middle East (and hence on to Europe). In order to continue mercantile activities and so ensure their survival, contemporary technology and innovation were utilised to build larger and more sophisticated ships, so that sea routes could be opened up. As a result, the 10th and 11th centuries became one of the golden periods of Chinese shipping, with vessels consistently plying trade via the high seas as far West as the Persian Gulf and East Africa.

In 1291 (the Yuan Dynasty, 1276-1386), one of the earliest recorded long distance voyages from East China to the Persian Gulf was undertaken by Marco Polo. At that time the great Kublai Khan, entrusted Polo with the safe passage of Princess Cocochin from Quanzhou to Hormuz for her marriage to the King of Il Khan. The voyage took two years and constituted the longest recorded cabotage voyage undertaken within one Empire.

The turning point in China’s expansive shipping endeavours came during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in the time of the Ming Dynasty. From 1405 onwards, Ming Emperor Yongle ( reigned 1403-1424)) sent emissaries on many expeditions to oversea countries. The best known of these were undertaken by Admiral Zheng He, the (Grand?) Eunuch of the court, whose expeditions marked the zenith of Chinese Maritime influence. Zheng He used Malacca as his naval base, making it the hub of his several hundred strong fleet. His exploits are well featured in the HKMM and, as 2005 is the 600th Anniversary of his first maritime diplomatic and trade mission, much will be written about him. There has been recent speculation that Zheng He’s fleets may have sailed to North America half a century before Columbus. 

The eventual arrival of European ships, with Portuguese, Dutch, English, American and Scandinavian merchants seeking highly valued trade with China, is richly depicted in the Museum’s Ancient Gallery, which covers the period up to the advent of steam ships. It was the help supplied by the steam-driven naval frigate, the Nemesis that was the deciding factor in the unequal Opium Wars. Characters such as the Pomeranian missionary and interpreter Carl Gutzlaff are portrayed. Gutzlaff, in his zeal to distribute bibles along the coast of China, agreed to distribute opium at the same time, in exchange for free passage on the coastal steamer. 

The Museum’s Modern Gallery carries on the story line through the design evolution of the early steam ship, to the sprouting of Chinese shipowning companies in Shanghai in the early 1900s and on to the arrival of the Shanghai shipowners in Hong Kong in 1948-9. 

The spectacular rise of Hong Kong as a shipping centre from the 1950’s to the present day is a story to tell with pride, albeit with a modesty befitting the low key profile of Chinese shipowners in general. The Museum concentrates on the interesting chapters of maritime history unique to China’s coastline and port cities. The story is made more gripping by the turbulence of that period, encompassing the Boxer Rebellion, the Sino-Russian War, the toppling of the Ching Dynasty, the establishment of the Republic, the Warlord Interregnum, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the Second Sino-Japanese War and the outbreak of Civil War in China.

The story is also told of the amazing development of Hong Kong’s Fragrant Harbour and the leading role it plays in container shipping around the world today. 

The Committee of shipping aficionados who are planning and guiding the establishment of this fledgling museum is very aware that a modern museum must offer entertainment, fascination and education. As well as housing 60 ship models ranging in time from a two thousand year old pottery model of a Han Dynasty junk, 2.4 meter in length, to a model of the most recent LNG carrier, marine paintings and artefacts, the museum will contain interactive computer-driven exhibits, film clips, light and sound effects and, for the first time ever in Hong Kong, an Actor-Interpreter production. In this way, over 2,000 years of Chinese Maritime history, will be shown in the most modern and up-to-date of settings. Even before the doors are open to the public, the Museum directors have been plotting a substantial expansion of the space, coverage and activities for 2010.

In 2006 the replica of the Swedish East Indiaman “Götheborg”, presently under completion in her home port, will be retracing the epic voyages to China of her predecessor between the years 1738-1745 and will anchor off the Museum in Stanley Bay where history will be relived.

[Based on an article written by Anthony J. Hardy and K.L. Tam published in BIMCO Review 2005.]

Address and contact details

G/F, Murray House, Stanley Plaza, Stanley, Hong Kong 
Tel: +852 2813 2322 
Fax: +852 2813 8033
Email: info@hkmaritimemusuem.org
Website: www.hkmaritimemuseum.org