Hong Kong (Happy Valley) Cemetery
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Hong Kong Cemetery is one of the early Christian cemeteries of Hong Kong during its colonial era (founded in 1845). It is located beside the racecourse at Happy Valley, along with the Jewish Cemetery, Parsee Cemetery, St. Michael's Catholic Cemetery and the Muslim Cemetery. Currently, it is a popular place for filming movies and TV shows.
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[edit] Types of graves
There are two main categories of graves that can be found in Hong Kong Cemetery:
[edit] Military Graves
As the name states, this category of graves for British military dead, spanned from the late 19th century til the early 1960s (when the Government of Hong Kong established another cemetery near Sai Wan for military dead in 1965). At the beginning of colonial era, the British garrison force had the same problem as those in India: weather. Some of the members of the force could not adapt the tropical weather of Hong Kong and died due to tropical disease. While the others fell during the Boxer Rebellion--mainly in 1900. At the time being, it is the major cemetery for military dead along with Stanley Military Cemetery
There are about 100 military graves of World War I--79 of them are in Hong Kong Cemetery, mainly the soldiers who died in Hong Kong and Kowloon Military Hospital, which received the sick and wounded from the German-leased territory of Tsingtao, on the peninsula of Shandong in north-east China. Evidence show that most of them are navy-related.
Before the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in 1941, Britain had sent 2 battalions: Royal Scots and Middlesex to Hong Kong for garrison duty. And this cemetery provides evidence of the presence of these two battalions. Beside, there are 62 military graves of World War II--mainly from the year 1941
The British force at Hong Kong still used the cemetery as their burial ground until 1965. The notable military burial is Driver Joseph Hughes, a recipient of George Cross.
Beside, there were 2 monuments erected by Royal Artillery in their memory of the fallen comrades, which were lately moved to Hong Kong Coastal Defense Museum.
[edit] Civilian Graves
The civilian burials in the cemetery are quite diverse, which is a good demonstration of the social structure at the early stage of the colonial era. It is widely understood that the cemetery is for the burial of the privileged group of the society, mostly British. Famous personnel of that era like Sir Robert Ho Tung and his first wife, Sir C.P. Chater, Sir Kai Ho and Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff (a German Missionary who helped to establish Lutherian churches in Hong Kong) etc. were buried there.
On the other hand, there are quite an amount of Chinese burials, all of them Christians, some of them were related to Xinhai Revolution, including Quai Wan Yeung, who was assassinated by Qing Government at Hong Kong.
A number of Japanese were buried in the cemetery, most being Japanese who resided here in the early colonial era. Some of them were Christian, but most were followers of Shinto. The Japanese custom of burning incense during memorial rites led to complaints from some Westerners. As a result, a special Japanese section of the graveyard was designated.
