The Hong Kong History Podcast

Latest episodes

• Defending coal

  May 11, 2025 · 55 min

  It must be obvious from what we’ve looked at so far that because of its importance to sea trade – then as now ninety per cent and more of international flows of goods – and to the economies of Britain’s empire, coal stores mattered. It is…

• Using coal

  May 4, 2025 · 59 min

  To begin with in the 1840s, the almost exclusive use for coal in Hong Kong was to fuel the steam engines of ships. William Tarrant, a very typical Hong Kong denizen then as now, or how a no-one can become a someone once the pond is small…

• Storing coal

  April 29, 2025 · 56 min

  Because coal is bulky, tricky, dusty and unsightly stuff, storing it between its arrival in Hong Kong and it getting used was always a problem. That’s because as demand rose, so the amount of coal needed to be kept on hand increased…

• Shipping coal

  March 11, 2025 · 57 min

  Coal is both bulky and very messy stuff. Early steam ships – that’s until the arrival of what’s known as the triple-expansion steam engine in the 1880s – were chronically inefficient consumers of it to boot. Up until the 1860s, a typical…

• Where did the coal come from?

  March 1, 2025 · 1 hr 5 min

  Britain’s huge advantage economically was its early development both of a coal industry and of a seaborne coal trade. Hong Kong’s big disadvantage is that had few natural mineral resources and no coal. As Britain aggressively expanded its…

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