Defending coal

It must be obvious from what we’ve looked at so far that because of its importance to sea trade – then as now ninety per cent and more of international flows of goods – and to the economies of Britain’s empire, coal stores mattered. It is easy to see why.

Until the early twentieth century, and not always even then, no ship could carry enough coal to fuel it from its starting point to wherever it was bound and then back home again. Until perhaps 1900, any ship – merchantman or warship – would need to take on coal three or four times on its way from Europe to Hong Kong and as many times on the way back. Having access to, but much more important firm control over, what were called coaling stations – fuel stops – really mattered.

Hong Kong, it soon turned out, was the British Empire’s most important coaling station – called a First Class Coaling Station – in East Asia. The important point is that no other Western power at the time had any equivalent until the late 1890s, and that’s ignoring two other things. The British merchant fleet was half or more of all ships afloat so it tended to carry disproportionate amounts of everyone else’s cargoes, coal included. Second, because Britain was the world’s largest producer of coal until the late 19th century a lot of other nation’s coal at ‘their’ coaling stations – there were lots all over the world with 50% or so not British controlled – tended to come from British coalfields. Given frequent 19th century big power rivalry as western empires aggressively expanded, stopping others grabbing ‘your’ coal mattered. That’s why, from the 1880s through to the early 1900s, as worries about imperial rivalries in the China Seas escalated, Hong Kong suddenly started acquiring all those huge gun batteries you can see on Mount Davis, at Pinewood Battery above HKU, at Lei Yue Mun, at Stonecutters Island, on Devil’s Peak and so on. Their function was to prevent any foreign naval power from stomping into Hong Kong and taking control of its coal and coaling facilities.