Some believed that malaria was caused by drinking too much, staying out in the sun, or being exposed to moonlight. Others speculated that the earth’s electromagnetic forces—then still a new and mysterious concept—might somehow weaken the body. Many blamed substandard housing, especially the temporary bamboo matsheds where soldiers sheltered before permanent accommodations were built. 

The prevailing Western medical theory was that malaria was caused by miasma, “bad air”, emanating from rotting matter in the ground. This was a maddeningly vague explanation with no clear solution. Should buildings be designed differently for better airflow? Maybe the city was located on the wrong side of the island altogether; maybe the fishing villages were on the south side for a good reason. During a minor outbreak in 1848, Major Edward Aldrich recommended firing cannon blanks several times a day to disrupt the atmosphere, a suggestion taken seriously by his superiors. Incredibly, people knew that mosquito nets prevented the disease, but thought it was because they filtered the air.  

Doctors realised that certain locations such as marshes, valleys, and thickly-vegetated ravines were especially malaria-prone. Today we know that these are habitats where mosquitoes live and breed, but in 1843 it seemed as though the land itself was contaminated, noxious to human habitation, maybe even cursed. 

Two areas were hit the hardest. One was the military barracks at West Point (today’s Sai Ying Pun, which means “Western Military Camp”), built on abandoned rice terraces near today’s Hong Kong University Main Building. The other was at East Point (today’s Morrison Hill) near Wong Nai Chung where some European merchants had started to build homes. Both locations were quickly abandoned, rewriting the city’s development trajectory. 

Why Central is not in the centre

Cowell argues that the British established the City of Victoria at Central almost by chance. It just happened to be the part of the coastline that was most sheltered from winter winds by Kowloon’s landmass when they landed in January 1841. Had they arrived at a different time of year, they might have set up somewhere else. Initially, Governor Henry Pottinger planned to relocate the city centre to Wong Nai Chung (Happy Valley), which is in the actual centre of Hong Kong Island’s north shore. It had been the island’s only major rice farming village, providing enough flat, well-irrigated land for a community of 300. Pottinger saw that it offered much more developable land than Central’s narrow shoreline. Meanwhile Jardine Matheson, the prominent opium trading house, built its headquarters on a nearby ridge at East Point in anticipation of the move. 

The outbreak ended this plan. Many merchants who had built houses at East Point sickened and died, though the Jardine compound was somehow spared. The victims were buried at Wong Nai Chung, which became the city’s cemetery, and remained for many years afterwards the eastern boundary of urban development.  

The Admiralty disconnect

Between Central and Wanchai lies the subdistrict of Admiralty, where no-one lives. In Admiralty, there are no narrow streets and old buildings, just large-scale commercial and government complexes. It feels so different and separate from the neighbourhoods on either side because until its redevelopment in the 1970s and 1980s, it was one big military base. The English name “Admiralty” comes from Admiralty Dock, the British naval yard that occupied the coastline. The Chinese name, kam1 zung1 (meaning “golden clock”) comes from a large brass clock that hung outside the Wellington Barracks near Queensway. Admiralty too, was a product of malaria. 

In the year of the epidemic, a turf battle played out between Governor Pottinger and Lord Saltoun, Commander of the British Forces in China, over the location of the city’s military defences. Pottinger desired a continuous commercial strip along Queen’s Road from Central to East Point, preferring the military to stay out of the way at the western end of the island. Saltoun, on the other hand, wanted to concentrate all military facilities in a centrally defensible location, at Admiralty. There were already some military supply buildings and temporary barracks there, but there were private warehouses, homes, and market bazaars mixed in amongst them.

In June 1843, just before the outbreak, Saltoun ordered Major Aldrich to prepare a report on the best location for the colony’s military facilities. Aldrich delivered a 16-page report supporting Saltoun’s position and completely ignoring Pottinger’s. He even recommended that Admiralty should be made an exclusive military zone, even if it meant taking over all the private buildings. Saltoun backed Pottinger into a corner, telling him that he could either implement Aldrich’s recommendations now, or wait for London’s approval. Pottinger wrote to London hoping for support, but just days after he sent his letter, the West Point Barracks was evacuated. Returning to that place of death became unthinkable. Saltoun and Aldrich got their way. 

The military finally ceded the land back to the government in the 1970s. Victoria Barracks was redeveloped into Hong Kong Park, while the land closer to the coast was sold for commercial development. The naval dockyard basin was reclaimed and became the Central Government Offices. 

Climbing up the hill

With unhealthy locations limiting urban expansion eastwards and westwards, the authorities began to look up the mountain. In late 1843, Pottinger forcibly cleared Chinese merchants out of small neighbourhood called the Upper Bazaar in order to resell the land to European developers. The Upper Bazaar had been in the approximate location of today’s Graham and Peel Streets; the occupants were relocated further west to Tai Ping Shan. 

At around the same time, people noticed that prisoners locked up in Victoria Prison (today’s Tai Kwun), perched up on a ridge above Central, rarely got sick. When this was reported in the press, the surrounding area became prime real estate. By 1845, property listings were advertising it as a healthy location. 

The link between height and health became cemented in the minds of Europeans, which created the Mid-Levels. Both altitudes and property prices continued to climb, so that by the 1870s, The Peak was established as the most desirable location for the wealthiest and most politically powerful elites. 

One of early colonial Hong Kong’s most symbolic scenes, that of taipans being carried up the mountain in sedan chairs by sweating, exhausted men, was essentially created by malaria. It eventually led to the construction of the Peak Tram in 1888, Hong Kong’s earliest form of public transportation, and still a major tourist attraction today. 

The marks of malaria

In 1844 and 1845, the number of malaria fatalities fell, to everyone’s relief. But while there was never such a deadly outbreak of malaria again, it remained a stubborn problem well into the 20th Century. It took decades of careful data collection, mosquito control work, and public cooperation to eliminate. The last indigenous case was reported in 1998. Yet malaria has left a permanent mark on Hong Kong. It shaped the way the City of Victoria was laid out, setting down patterns that would affect urban development until the present day. It is hard to imagine what the city would look like if mosquitoes had not wreaked havoc during its earliest years. 

Sources:

Christopher Cowell, “Form Follows Fever: Malaria and the Construction of Hong Kong, 1841-1849”, Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2024. 

Christopher Cowell, “The Hong Kong Fever of 1843: Collective Trauma and the Reconfiguring of Colonial Space”, Modern Asian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , March 2013 , pp. 329 – 364.

Ria Sinha, “Fatal Island: Malaria in Hong Kong”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 58 (2018), pp. 55-80.