Hedda Morrison

In September 1946 the Hanyang, a passenger-cargo steamship, was voyaging down the China coast, southbound from Tientsin (Tianjin) to
the colony of Hong Kong. On board was the photographer Hedda Morrison. On 21 September, beneath Hong Kong Island's craggy peaks,
the Hanyang nosed up to a mooring in Victoria Harbour. Enriched by her experiences photographing in China, buoyed by her recent marriage, the photographer disembarked.

Hedda Morrison had recently departed from Peking (Beijing), her home for the last thirteen years. She stayed in Hong Kong for six months, with her husband Alastair Morrison. In March
1947 they sailed from Hong Kong for England. Shortly before some of her photographs had
been published in the Hong Kong government's 1946 annual report. That document gave the first clue to the existence of the photographs seen on this website.

When Hedda Morrison reached Hong Kong the war was a lingering memory, a backdrop to the urge of virtually everyone to restore continuity and stability to their own lives. Europeans, returned from the war or freed from the local camps, took their place again. Stoic enduring Chinese, frugal yet ever hopeful, sought to restore simple livings.

The rich, the comfortable, the poor, the destitute
– all yearned for a better future.

Grand surroundings framed Hong Kong's urban areas. Grassy hills, rich green in September after the summer monsoon rains, provided a natural backdrop to the urban districts. Hong Kong Island was only developed along its harbour front, with expansive hilly areas to the south. Kowloon, while well urbanized in places, straggled into semi-wilds towards a line of sheer peaks. Between them, the harbour was the focus of trade and of the spirit of Hong Kong. Farther afield rural areas and an island archipelago were little populated and often superbly beautiful.

Hedda Morrison set out to record – day by day, week by week – the patterns of local existence.
As before in China, as later in Southeast Asia, ordinary daily life was her interest. In 1946 – 47,
as some of the photographs in this section suggest, certain emotions and realities flowed through Hong Kong: concern and wonderment at the future; physical hardship affecting young and old; self-reliance with the urge to make good; and, mostly, abiding personal optimism.