
Possession Street () is a street in
Sheung Wan
Sheung Wan (Chinese: 上環) is an List of places in Hong Kong, area in Hong Kong, located in the north-west of Hong Kong Island, between Central, Hong Kong, Central and Sai Ying Pun. Administratively, it is part of the Central and Weste ...
, from
Queen's Road West to
Hollywood Road, on
Hong Kong Island
Hong Kong Island () is an island in the southern part of Hong Kong. The island, known originally and on road signs simply as "Hong Kong", had a population of 1,289,500 and a population density of , . It is the second largest island in Hong Kon ...
, Hong Kong. The street marks the boundary of Queen's Road West and Queen's Road Central.
Name
The original Chinese name was (''Po Se Son Kai''), based on the pronunciation of English name. It was later renamed to (''Sui Hang Hou Kai'') after a
nullah
A nullah or nala (Hindustani language, Hindustani or "nallah" in Punjabi language, Punjabi) is an 'arm of the sea', stream, or watercourse, a steep narrow valley. Like the wadi of the Arabs, the nullah is characteristic of mountainous or hilly co ...
beside.
History
The area was the site of ''Possession Point'', a former
point of land on the northwestern coast of Hong Kong, before
land reclamation
Land reclamation, often known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new Terrestrial ecoregion, land from oceans, list of seas, seas, Stream bed, riverbeds or lake ...
moved the spot further inland. The area is where Commodore
Gordon Bremer
Sir James John Gordon Bremer (26 September 1786 – 14 February 1850) was a British Royal Navy officer. He served in the Napoleonic Wars against France, the First Anglo-Burmese War in Burma, and the First Opium War in China.
Born in Portsea, ...
, commander-in-chief of British forces in China, took formal possession of
Hong Kong
Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
on 26 January 1841, and this date is considered as the
founding of Hong Kong.
Captain
Edward Belcher, who surveyed the island in 1841, wrote: "We landed on Monday, the 25th, 1841, at fifteen minutes past eight A. M., and being the bona fide first possessors, Her Majesty's health was drank with three cheers on Possession Mount."
The Chinese Repository
''. Volume 12. Canton. 1843. p. 492. Accompanied by officers of the naval squadron the next day, Bremer took formal possession, under a ''
feu de joie
A feu de joie (literally "fire of joy" in French) is a form of formal celebratory gunfire consisting of a celebratory rifle salute, described as a "running fire of guns." As soldiers fire into the air sequentially in rapid succession, the cascad ...
'' from the Royal Marines and a
royal salute from the
men-of-war ships.
The hoisting of the
Union Jack
The Union Jack or Union Flag is the ''de facto'' national flag of the United Kingdom. The Union Jack was also used as the official flag of several British colonies and dominions before they adopted their own national flags.
It is sometimes a ...
was possibly done by either
William Dowell, who was a midshipman during the ceremony, or Mohammed Arab, who served in either the
Bengal Volunteers or 37th
Madras Native Infantry.
The area was kept as an open space, and used for recreation by the local Chinese, who called it ''Tai Tat Tei'' (大笪地). It was developed in the 1980s and formed into a hotel and commercial complex, which is also the site of the
Hong Kong–Macau Ferry Terminal.
The point has now disappeared from the coastline, but Possession Street and the sudden turn of
Queen's Road West reveals its original location. In maps of the 1980s and before,
Hollywood Road Park is marked as Possession Point.
At the end of the 19th century, the street was full of
brothels
A brothel, strumpet house, bordello, bawdy house, ranch, house of ill repute, house of ill fame, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. For legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe t ...
, until 1903, when they were relocated to
Shek Tong Tsui"Early Hong Kong Brothels"
Exhibition at the University Museum and Art Gallery, 26 November 2003 to 29 February 2004 and the premises was replaced with housing. It resulted in the golden period of Shek Tong Tsui, ''tong sai fung yuet'' (), where wealthy Chinese merchants gathered.
See also
* List of streets and roads in Hong Kong
The following are incomplete lists of Controlled-access highway, expressways, tunnels, bridges, roads, Avenue (landscape), avenues, streets, crescents, Town square, squares and bazaars in Hong Kong.
Many roads on the Hong Kong Island conform to ...
* History of Hong Kong (1800s–1930s)
Hong Kong (1800s–1930s) oversaw the founding of the new crown colony of Hong Kong under the British Empire.Trea Wiltshire, Wiltshire, Trea. irst published 1987(republished & reduced 2003). Old Hong Kong – Volume One. Central, Hong Kon ...
* West Point, Hong Kong
* Flagstaff Hill, Tai Po
References
{{coord, 22.2871, 114.1481, type:landmark_source:enwiki-googlemaplink, display=title
Sheung Wan
Roads on Hong Kong Island