SPD3159 Heritage Hong Kong: Bronze Lion statues

You can see that there are two lions in front of HSBC headquarters in Central, do you know what is their name? Let me tell you, they are called Stephen and Stitt. Stephen was named for A G Stephen, the Hong Kong manager in 1920-1924 and G H Stitt, was the Shanghai manager at the same period. Stephen is look like roaring, but Stitt is sitting quietly, someone said that this represented the characters of these two famous bankers.

This pair of lions contains a meaning of safety and guard, each of them is weight 2250 pounds. You may not know that actually these pair of lions is a copy version, the original version is now located in Shanghai museum. There are three pairs copy version of bronze lion, the first pair is in Hong Kong, the second pair is in London while the third version is in Shanghai.

During the Japanese occupation, these two bronze lions were confiscated by Japanese since they are lack of army material and they intend to melt down two bronze lions to get material. Fortunately, Japan surrender in 1945 and two lion were discover by a American sailor in a shipyard which is located in Osaka, therefore, two bronze lions were returned to Hong Kong a few month later and restored to original position in October 1946. 

You can see that there are some bullet scars on the Stephen’s body, it is because of the Japanese occupation and this always reminds Hong Kong people do not forgot the war. These lions had witness the Hong Kong history development and grow with Hong Kong people. They become a landmark of Hong Kong and represent HSBC.

 

by Wendy