Who is “G”?
The short version
My hunt for “G” began when I found a letter from 1940 referring to the division of “G’s” estate. The letter was from my mother Iris, to her sister Nora Hunter, sharing the news that their father, Tobias Hunter, was about to give them each their shares of what was referred to as “G’s Legacy”
At the same time I found a copy of a statement showing the allotment of funds, and division of the proceeds from the sale of the “4 Moreton Terrace” property. It was typed by Tobias Hunter, a copy of which had previously been sent to his daughter Nora Hunter.
The first division of the estate had taken place in 1937 and listed the cash on hand, and amounts paid out for funeral expenses etc. A second division was made in 1939 following the sale of “G’s” property at # 4 Moreton Terrace, Hong Kong, with the proceeds going to the beneficiaries in “G’s Legacy”. The split was four ways, with Tobias Hunter and his brother George each getting a quarter share. Another quarter was to be shared equally between Tobias Hunter’s two children, Iris and Nora. The last quarter share’s recipient is unknown but could have been Toby and George’s sister May or their other brother, James who we know virtually nothing about.
But who was this “G”? My initial guess was that maybe “G” referred to Grandmother. I had never heard mention of my mother’s grandparents, other than their grandfather William Leyland Hunter who was Tobias’ father. I knew that “G” was not him as he’d died in England and was bankrupt at the time of his passing. There was never any mention of a “mother”.
Could “G” be the unknown grandmother? Could it have been someone whose name began with that letter, like Gertrude. What I knew for sure was that “G” had owned “4 Moreton Terrace” and left it to the Hunters.
I began to search land records in Hong Kong to establish who owned # 4 Moreton Terrace. As the location no longer exists finding the records involved a great deal of searching. I first located the lot number from public records and with that I was able to make a search of the “rate books” and discovered that in 1939 the property was in the name of “Tobias Hunter & Ancr”. I took the abbreviation to mean ancestors, although that doesn’t really make sense.
I wanted to find out who owned the property before that, so more searching. Luckily I found a sympathetic employee at the HK public Records Office, who, after stressing to me that this was not the normal procedure, e-mailed images of the pertinent records to me. If I recall, the book from 1938 is missing but 1936 and 1937 books are there.
The Shelley Street address rang a bell, but where had I seen it?
Of course! On the property registration rolls of 1939 for the 4 Moreton Terrace property! It showed the owner as Tobias Hunter & Ancr with his address listed as 11 Shelley Street. These weren’t the only times I’d seen this address, so I scanned through the Hong Kong Jurors Lists which are reproduced in their entirety at www.gwulo.com
I began looking back at the late 1890s lists and worked my way forward. I found George first and then Tobias, both living at 1 Old Bailey Street, then in about 1903 I found James Hunter, working for S J David & Co, and living at 11 Shelley Street. It’s just around the corner from 1 Old Bailey Street.
Through Gwulo.com I met Annelise lives who lives in California and does genealogy as a hobby. For whatever reasons, she’s chosen some prominent Hong Kong families as the subject of her studies. We ended up chatting on Skype and she was kind enough to walk me through the on-line land registry search process. She showed me how to use the maps and find addresses and from there to getting the legal lot number of record. There’s a small fee for each on-line search, HK$25 or about US$3.50. I think I did about 7 that first night.
One thing we noticed during these searches was that 1 Old Bailey Street was on the corner of Hollywood Road and Old Bailey Street.
This could make the Hollywood Road entrance #20. Another search revealed the owner of 20 Hollywood Road was none other than our Kot Choy! It seems every time I find a solution to one of these family mysteries, two more pop up!
Back at 11 Shelley Street, Kot Choy is on record as the sole owner since May of 1899 but on March 31, 1903 the property changed title from Kot Choy, sole owner to Kot Choy and May Hunter, Trustees. This change took place just 2 weeks prior to May Hunter’s April 15th, 1903 marriage to Tom Cock in Hong Kong.
Note: The Hong Kong Jurors lists show James Hunter still living at Shelley Street in 1905, two years after the property became a joint trusteeship.
Up to this point we still have no idea who Kot Choy is? The name has been on land registries since 1887 so assuming that one would need to be at least the legal age of 21 years to own land, that would mean a birth date of no later than 1867. This meant that Kot Choy was 10 years older than Tobias and 12 years older than May.
Could it have been a friend of the family, or maybe a relative? Kot Choy did, after all, leave a considerable sum of money to the Hunter clan.