Hong Kong Maritime Museum
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Hong Kong Maritime Museum is a non-profit educational institution funded by the international shipping community and the government in
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
. It is located at Central Pier 8, Hong Kong. The museum was established on 8 September in 2005 and reopened to the public in February 2013. The museum focuses on the development of boats, ships, maritime exploration and trade, and naval warfare. While concentrating on the South China coast and its adjacent seas, it also covers global trends and provides an account of Hong Kong's maritime growth. The museum includes semi-permanent and special exhibitions, interactive displays, educational events, a café, and a museum shop.


Murray House, the museum's first home

The museum first opened to the public on 8 September 2005, under the leadership of its board of directors, its first museum director, Stephen Davies, and the trustees of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum Trust. It was located on the ground floor of
Murray House Murray House is a Victorian-era building in Stanley, Hong Kong. Built in the present-day business district of Central in 1846 as officers' quarters of the Murray Barracks, the building was moved to the south of Hong Kong Island during the ...
, a reconstruction of one of the first 19th-century buildings of the British colonial period. The building had been dismantled stone by stone, stored in a rural site for over a decade, and then reassembled around a modern reinforced concrete building overlooking Stanley Bay. The museum was divided into two galleries, the ancient gallery and the modern gallery, displaying more than 500 items including models of ancient and modern ships, paintings, ceramics, trade goods and shipping documents. A model of a 2,000-year-old boat made of pottery from the
Han Dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...
was one of the museum's highlights. Another treasure was the early 19th century, 18-metre long, ink-painting scroll, ''Pacifying the South China Sea'', which relates how the Viceroy of the Two Guangs, Bailing, solved the problem of piracy on the
Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
coast in 1809–1810. A featured highlight is the Battle of
Lantau Lantau Island (also Lantao Island, Lan Tao) is the largest island in Hong Kong, located West of Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula, and is part of the New Territories. Administratively, most of Lantau Island is part of the Islands Dis ...
in which imperial naval forces battled Hong Kong's most famous pirate,
Cheung Po Tsai Cheung Po Tsai (; born Cheung Po; 1783–1822) was a navy colonel of the Qing dynasty and former pirate. "Cheung Po Tsai" literally means "Cheung Po the Kid". He was known to the Portuguese Navy as ''Quan Apon Chay'' during the Battle of th ...
(Zhang Baozai). The ancient gallery portrayed the fortunes of Chinese shipping during ancient and dynastic times. It also illustrated how China's overseas neighbours and Western trading nations together shaped the maritime history of Asia and the regions beyond. The modern gallery explored the historical factors and the Chinese entrepreneurship that have made Hong Kong a maritime success. It covered developments in ship design, and specialisation that have changed the face of world's shipping industry and to which Hong Kong's port has had to adapt. Between 2005 and 2011, the museum attracted an average of 35,000 visitors per year. But because of the limit on its lease of its premises, the small size of the exhibition, office and storage spaces and its relatively remote location, the museum was obliged either to close down or find an alternative location. A long period of negotiation between the museum of the Government of the Hong Kong SAR beginning in September 2007 resulted in the endorsement of the museum's bid to move its operations to Central Pier 8 in the Chief Executive's Policy Address in October 2009. The object of the relocation was to serve more people and exhibit the collection, which had been almost trebled in size during the museum's first five years.


Central Pier 8

The Hong Kong Maritime Museum renovated Central Pier 8 in 2012.WP11cover (iseas.edu.sg)
/ref> Until shortly before the museum bid for the use of the vacant spaces the building was used as one of the terminals for the Star Ferry for its service to Hung Hom. The east side of the pier had also been used for non-scheduled ferry services. In August 2007 the pier's unused spaces were under tender for restaurants and kiosks. The museum submitted a proposal for converting the pier for use as a museum. This proposal was submitted in early October 2007 and was accepted by the government. The following three years saw an intensive period of consultation between HKMM and government during which the museum's initial design proposals by Dr Stephen Davies, the museum's Director at the time and the HKMM's original Murray House architects Richards Basmajian were refined. The final design of the museum premises is the outcome of the main consultants appointed for the project, P&T Architects and Engineers, with the gallery design and fit-out by Haley Sharpe Designs (UK) and Kingsmen. The renovation projects represented a partnership with the Hong Kong Government and many of Hong Kong's maritime community. The move allowed the museum to expand its gallery spaces to fifteen with an additional two galleries for special exhibitions and for hosting special events. The museum was also to have a café. The '' South China Morning Post'' reported that the Hong Kong government partly financed the HK$115 million renovation project. Richard Wesley, the Hong Kong Maritime Museum's second Director, said at the blessing ceremony that this project "marks the culmination of an enormous amount of work by board members and trustees of the HK Maritime Museum to create a truly high-class maritime museum in the Central waterfront. We are very grateful to the many shipping companies who have backed the museum financially since its birth in 2005, and of course the government." Since the museum's opening in 2005 the collection had been built from some 700 objects to over 2000 and the library had gone from 15 books to over 1500. The display space at Pier 8 is more than five times the area of the Hong Kong Maritime's first location. It was forecast that the new museum would receive around 140,000 visitors a year but the difficulties of the site out on a limb from the Central business district, which closes at weekends, has proved a deterrent to visitation. Nonetheless, the museum has flourished and Café 8, as the new café is called, has become the home of Hong Kong's Café Scientifique.


Galleries of Pier 8

The gallery spaces are filled with some of Hong Kong's most interesting cultural heritage objects. Themes explored in the galleries include: China's maritime heritage, the Canton Trade, the Pirate Coast, Hong Kong's harbour, the evolution of China's modern maritime world, relations with foreign powers, maritime communications, charting, navigation and pilotage, recreational uses of the water, the underwater world, the sounds of the sea, shipping today, port development and safety at sea and Chinese marine art. Each of the galleries has been set up with the help and support of individuals and corporations in the maritime industry, who believe that the preservation of Hong Kong's maritime history should be a priority. One of the highlights of the museum is a painted scroll that depicts historical events of piracy in China. The scroll is one of Hong Kong's most important historical artefacts and one of the jewels of the museum's collection. It was painted in the early 19th century by an unknown artist to commemorate the defeat of the pirates who prowled the waters around Guangdong in the mid-Jiaqing period (1796–1820). The scroll is prominently displayed in the new Sea Bandits Gallery, in addition to the original, museum visitors have the opportunity to examine a digitised version of the scroll in minute detail. Other highlights include four paintings painted in
Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a p ...
in the late 18th century, styled the 'Gentiloni Paintings'. They are of Macau, Whampoa (Huangpu),
Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...
and
Zhaoqing Zhaoqing (), alternately romanized as Shiuhing, is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong Province, China. As of the 2020 census, its population was 4,113,594, with 1,553,109 living in the built-up (or metro) area made of Duanzhou, Dinghu ...
and had arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by 1810 when the lay secretary to the Papal Legate to the Portuguese Imperial court bought or was given them. They remained in the family until 2010, when they were purchased for the people of Hong Kong thanks to a donation from Fairmont Shipping. The magnificent 'General' Cannon in the Pacific Basin Sea Bandits Gallery was captured at
Humen The Humen, also Bocca Tigris or Bogue, is a narrow strait in the Pearl River Delta that separates Shiziyang in the north and Lingdingyang in the south near Humen Town in China's Guangdong Province. It is the site of the Pearl River's discharge ...
in the very first engagement of the First Opium War in 1841. Taken back to Britain, initially stored in the Tower of London and eventually a garden ornament, it was purchased by HKMM in 2010 thanks to a donation by Mr Kenneth K.W. Lo and brought back to its original home waters. Thanks to the Surveying and Mapping Office Training School of the
Lands Department The Lands Department is a government department under the Development Bureau responsible for all land matters in Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic ...
of the HKSAR, the HIT Viewing Gallery has the 'Rifleman's Bolt', preserving a small but vital part of Hong Kong's maritime and general cartographic heritage. Generous donors and lenders have ensured that the museum's galleries are full of mementoes to Hong Kong's long, important, varied and intriguing maritime story – from the very first modern chart of Hong Kong (unknown until HKMM helped to identify it in 2007), through stunning arrays of ship portraits and ship models, to one of the earliest of the modern chronometers that opened up the modern globalised maritime world, and a windsurfer used by Hong Kong's Hayley Chan Hei Man () in the 2012 Olympic Games. The galleries have over 25 interactive screens using the latest technology to introduce visitors to the vast range of stories and topics at the heart of Hong Kong's – and the world's – maritime story.


See also

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List of museums in Hong Kong __NOTOC__ The following is a list of museums in Hong Kong. (LCSD) indicates a museum managed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (EPD) indicates a museum managed by the Environmental Protection Department * indicates government-run mu ...
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Port of Hong Kong The Port of Hong Kong (), located by the South China Sea, is a deepwater seaport dominated by trade in containerised manufactured products, and to a lesser extent raw materials and passengers. A key factor in the economic development of Hong ...
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Intermodal container An intermodal container, often called a shipping container, is a large standardized shipping container, designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different modes of transport – from ship ...
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Ship model Ship models or model ships are scale models of ships. They can range in size from 1/6000 scale wargaming miniatures to large vessels capable of holding people. Ship modeling is a craft as old as shipbuilding itself, stretching back to ancien ...
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Tung Chao-yung Tung Chao-yung or C. Y. Tung (; 28 September 1912 – 15 April 1982), also known as Tung Hao-yun, ), was a Chinese shipping magnate, the founder of the Orient Overseas Line (now Orient Overseas Container Line or OOCL). He was the father of Tung ...
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Yue-Kong Pao Sir Yue-Kong Pao CBE JP (; 10 November 1918 — 23 September 1991), is the founder of Hong Kong's Worldwide Shipping Group which in the 20 years from purchasing its first used ship in 1955 became by far the largest shipping company in the w ...


References


External links


Hong Kong Maritime Museum
– Official site
Hong Kong Maritime Museum
– flickr page
Hong Kong Maritime Museum
YouTube Channel
Hong Kong Maritime Museum
- Google Cultural Institute {{Authority control Museums in Hong Kong Maritime museums in Hong Kong Stanley, Hong Kong