[1]

There is information on this firm and I have sourced the following from a research article belonging to the Hong Kong University, titled "The German Speaking Community in Hong Kong 1846 - 1918" written by Carl T. Smith. I think the article was written in the mid-1980s and Carl Smith had made use of information sourced from the Hong Kong Public Records Office.This is what he had to say about the company:

"Adolph Bourjau and Carl Albert Hubener were authorized to sign for L.E. Lebert and Oxford and Co. at Canton in 1858, but by the next year they were in business in Hong Kong under their own name ( Friends of China 18 March 1858, 31 May 1859). They were mentioned as emigrant agents in 1866 (Daily Press 1 November 1866). Mr. Bourjau continued as a senior partner until his death on 14 February 1873 ( Daily Press 5 April 1873).

Arthur Booth was a partner in 1862/3 and Oscar Booth from 1866 to 1869. Earnest Behre was the managing partner in Shanghai in the 1860s. Hermann Emil Hubener was admitted a partner in 1868. In 1861 Behre, Emil Hubener and A. Booth were assistants in the firm. Frederick Clause, another assistant, subsequently became a partner but left the firm in 1871 (Daily Press 2 January 1872), Gustav Adolph Wieler and his brother Oscar were assistants in 1866. Gustav became a partner in 1873. After the closure of the Bourjau, Huberer & Co, the two brothers formed the firm of Wieler and Co. It subsequently merged with Sander & Co. to become Sander, Wieler and Co."

Frank

[2]

operating in Hong Kong circa 1845 as Ship Chandlers and Storekeepers.
Adam Williamson

[3]

"Hong Kong’s oldest surviving bank. The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, which is the forerunner of the present-day Standard Chartered Bank, was incorporated in London and granted a royal charter in 1853 and began operation in 1857. Its Hong Kong Branch was set up in 1859 and issued its own notes on 1862. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the extension of the telegraph to China in 1871, Chartered was well placed to expand and develop its business. During the second half of the 19th century, branches were opened in many centres in India and the Far East. It merged with the Standard Bank of South Africa in 1969, and became the Standard Chartered Bank Limited."

Frank

[4]

The COMPTOIR D'ESCOMPTE de PARIS, that I could very freely translate as "Counter where to trade financial notes" is in fact the COMPTOIR NATIONAL D'ESCOMPTE de PARIS (CNEP). It is indeed a bank that was created in 1848. It opened an agency in Shanghai in 1860.
It became the BNP (Banque Nationale de Paris) by merger with other banks in 1966.
Philippe

"To make credit more readily accessible in a lagging economy, the French governement created the Comptoir National d’Escompte de Paris in 1848. It soon became the leading French commercial deposit bank, setting up branches to challenge the English colonial reach in Calcutta, Bombay, Shanghai and London. A branch was opened in Shanghai in 1848. This was three years after the Indian-based Oriental Banking Corporation had become the first British bank in the field. Reorganized in 1862, the Comptoir was the only bank, foreign or Chinese, seriously to challenge the British monopoly of exchange banking in China until 1889."

Frank

[5]

"On 3 March, 1886, The Hongkong Hotel Company was incorporated with limited liability. The board consisted of Douglas Lapraik, a Scotsman whose former home is now University Hall; Englishman C H M Bosman, a director of the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company; and German national Baron Gustav van Overbeck, Consul for Prussia and Austria in Hong Kong, who became the first chairman. The company was financed by the Hong Kong branch of the Bank of Paris. The hotel had a modest beginning, in 1868, as a three-storey building on the site previously owned by Dent & Co and stood prominently on the waterfront (the Praya) on the corner of Pedder Street. In 1890-92 it was totally renovated and had three storeys added. The six-storey Hongkong Hotel boasted of numerous bedrooms and was known then as the finest hotel in Hong Kong at the time. The Hongkong Hotel Company acquired the Oriental Hotel and adjoining building, Keying and Marine House in Pedder Street."

Frank

[6]

The firm is mentioned in Dr. Solomon Bard's book: Traders of Hong Kong: Some Foreign Merchant Houses, 1841 - 1899. On page 74 of the publication, it mentoned, " The firm of Norton, Lyall & Co was first formed in 1871 by Robert Lyall and Edward Norton, and failed in 1875 during a depression. It was then re-organized as Norton & Co. trading at Duddell Street and later on at Queen's Road. It was still trading in the 1890s, but seems to have failed once more about the turn of the century"

Frank

[7]

Background information on this German firm: The firm was founded by William Charles Engelbrecht von Pustau who advertised in the Friends of China newspaper that on 1 Jan 1846, he would commence trading in Hong Kong and Canton under the name of William Pustau and Company. In 1848, the company was appointed agent for the Austrian Lloyd Steam Navigation Co. The firm failed in 1878, caused by over extension into real estate. Two sons of the founder members became partners and took over some of the firm's former businesses, trading under the new name of Reuter, Brockelmann & Co.

Frank

[8]

"Frederick William Hagedom began his business career in Hong Kong in 1864 as an assistant in the firm of Hesse, Ehlers & Co. In July 1865, he and Richard H. Radecker became partners. He continued the business when Mr. Radecker left the firm in 1867. Hagedom & Co took on two new partners in 1868 and the name of the firm was changed to Vogel, Hagedom & Co. The new partners were Emil Vogel and Heinrich Kirchhoff. Emil Ernest William Vogel had previously been an assistant in the large American firm of Russell & Co. In 1877, Mr Hagedom retired from the company (DP 3 Sept 1877). After Mr Hagedom and Mr Vogel dissolved their partnership, Vogel continued in business as Vogel & Co until he left Hong Kong in 1881/82. About the year 1883 Vogel and Co ceased doing business in Hong Kong."

Frank

[9]

"The Honorable Wei Luk was the fourth Chinese to serve on the Legislative Council. He had another name Wei Bo-shan and Po Shan Road is named after him. He was born in Hong Kong in 1849 of a wealthy family, his father, Wei Kwong, being compradore to the Hong Kong branch of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China (now the Mercantile Bank Ltd.). After many years of Chinese studies under private tutors, he entered the Government Central School. In 1867, at the age of 18, he proceeded to England to attend the Leicester Stoneygate School. In 1868 he went to Scotland and studied for four years at the Dollar Institution. After a European tour, he returned to Hong Kong in 1872 and then worked in China for a short period. When his father died in 1879 he succeeded him as compradore to the bank. He was a very public-spirited citizen, well known for his charming manners and pleasant personality. In 1880 he was elected a director of the Tung Wah Hospital and in 1887 became its Chairman. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1883. In 1996 was appointed as the Chinese Unofficial Member of the Legislative Council. He was also one of the early Chinese Freemasons."

Frank