Where to get your varnish in Old Shanghai….

Posted: May 10th, 2021 | No Comments »

One of the Old Shanghai ‘inside baseball’ team here – Wilkinson, Heywood & Clark Ltd, purveyors of British varnish, paints and enamels. The firm had been around since 1896 based on the Caledonian Road in North London and with a factory up in Bootle. Being on the Callie, up behind Kings X and Euston, it’s perhaps not surprising that supplying paint to the railway industry was a big part of their business.

The ad at the bottom indicates that the firm had supplied the British Empire with paint for quite some time and so a Shanghai branch is no surprise either. And so here they are on Kiukiang Road (Jiujiang Lu) in Shanghai and the Alexandra Building (completed 1904; demolished 1952 – see below) in Hong Kong.

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