Private Lives – Women in 19th Century Hong Kong

Private Lives - Women in 19th Century Hong Kong

In this lecture we will learn something of the lives of women in nineteenth century Hong Kong, Chinese, European, Americans, Eurasian, Portuguese and others. Most histories of Hong Kong tend to ignore – or only touch upon – the lives of women.

​Some came to the colony as administrators’ or merchants’ wives, others arrived with the garrison; some women were independently-employed, others kept or staffed brothels. The public and private lives of Hong Kong’s women will be discussed in this lecture, with reference to numerous better-known and more obscure personalities.