Kwong Fuk Ancestral Hall

Owing to Taiping Rebellion in 19th century, a great number of Chinese immigrants from Southern and coastal area of China moved to Hong Kong whom seeking for refuge and job opportunities , the precarious workplaces and Hong Kong’s humid weather in summer have caused lots of the deprived Chinese workers died of illness (Lo, 2019).

With the deep-rooted tradition on burial in Chinese society, Tam Choi, who was one of the influential Chinese community leader in early Hong Kong, he led 14 local merchants and residents founded Kwong Fuk Ancestral Hall in 1856 to temporally entomb the deaths of the Chinese by seating their spirit tablets until their family took back the remains to hometown (Wong, 2017) . It was also a clinic for the disadvantaged Chinese community due to the deficiency of medical facilities for Chinese (Ding, 2008).

Amid the bubonic plague in 1894, the Tung Wah Hospital provided the service of funeral and coffins to the Chinese grassroot classes as the Chinese society attached a great importance on funeral rituals and traditions, for instance, they were not willing to die at home due to the signs of bringing bad fortune and persisted that the deceased people should be buried in ceremonial ways but not the rash arrangements of burial that sprinkled with the lime for sterilization by the British government (Law, 2019). Therefore, the patients would be sent to the Kwong Fuk Ancestral Hall when they were lying in a coma and waiting to be properly buried after their deaths (Society of Hong Kong History, 2014). There were also free public cemeteries in Lai Chi Kok and Tung Wah coffin homes that provided for temporary sanctuary of the Chinese cadavers of bubonic plague and being (Chow, 2020).

After the plague, the Hong Kong government demolished all the housing in Tai Ping Shan district to eradicate the recurrence of bubonic plague. Considering Kwong Fuk Ancestral Hall was located between Tai Ping Shan and Pound Lane, the ancestral hall was rebuilt by the colonial government after the demolition of Tai Ping Shan district and commissioned in 1895 (Chan, 2017).