The Hong Kong lawyer from city’s Portuguese community whose bravery as a prisoner of war is the stuff of local legend
- Christopher D’Almada e Castro was a distinguished lawyer who commanded the No 5 Portuguese Company MG when the Japanese invaded Hong Kong during World War II
- While in a prisoner of war camp, he assisted intelligence-passing through the British Army Aid Group at great personal risk
In her historical travelogue Hong Kong: Epilogue to an Empire – a series of impressionistic snapshots of the British colony between the 1984 Joint Declaration and the 1997 handover – Jan Morris made note of various long-resident communities.
In particular, she described the local Portuguese community and its wide-ranging contributions to the evolution of Hong Kong society. Various residents were profiled along the way; while tactfully unnamed, these were readily recognisable within their own circle.
Of one man in particular, Morris wrote: “[…] some of them live in an exquisitely civilised style. I think of one distinguished lawyer, whose grandfather came to Hong Kong from Macao in 1842, sitting in his lovely house in the rural New Territories – fronted by an islanded bay, backed by a green mountain – with his four big dogs, his three cats, his fastidious library, his flowers and rare works of Chinoiserie, showing me the scribbled diary he kept when a prisoner of war of the Japanese, together with mementoes of his annual climbing trip to Zermatt, and the famous stamp collection which has made his name known wherever philatelists assemble […]”
A page-note reveals: “It really was his grandfather who came: the grandfather was in his teens, the grandson is in his seventies, and so three generations of D’Almadas have experienced the entire colonial history of Hong Kong.”
The person who fascinated Morris was Christopher D’Almada e Castro.
Born in Hong Kong in 1910, and educated in the colony and at Douai School in England, he qualified as a solicitor. With his sporting abilities as a champion sprinter, a public-school accent and his effortless charm, he was always popular.
As the son of a civic-spirited member of the Hong Kong Police Reserve, who actively encouraged public service in others, D’Almada joined the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps and commanded the No 5 Portuguese Company MG when the Japanese invaded; his father’s junior solicitor, Captain H.A. de Barros Botelho, commanded the other Portuguese company.
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In a 1990 stamp-auction catalogue, D’Almada, referring to himself, wrote: “During the first week of the battle, Christopher, ever optimistic, picked up eight albums from his home […]” to exchange stamps with fellow collectors who had been mobilised.
“When on Christmas Day 1941 Hong Kong surrendered, Christopher embarrassingly found himself trying to conceal the eight albums from the prying eyes of the enemy. With some difficulty Christopher drove his car into the heart of the city where he deposited the albums with his sister.”
He concludes that some stamps were sold to buy food and medicines for him and others in the prison camps.
Prisoners of war devised ingenious methods to pass messages outside camp. Family members could supply food in bottles, which were washed and returned for reuse. D’Almada sent notes on small circles of paper hidden inside the lids.
Initially neither found nor read, his sister Gloria cottoned on to their presence after D’Almada gesticulated from behind the wire fence.
Fluent in Cantonese, he later assisted intelligence-passing through the British Army Aid Group, at great personal risk. Photographs, voice recordings and circular letters are on display at the Museum of Coastal Defence in Shau Kei Wan.
Registrar of the Supreme Court until retirement, D’Almada served on the Hong Kong War Memorial Fund Committee.
President of the Hong Kong Philatelic Society from 1950 to 1986, he won gold medals for his historic covers, was made a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society London and was on the local Stamp Advisory Board.
The amateur social historian all Hong Kong scholars owe a big debt to
With wide circles of friends from his interests in law, government and Hong Kong art, history, heritage and the countryside, and a lifelong sense of commitment to home and place, D’Almada experienced a full life and a fortunate end.
On a sunny day, 30 years ago last week, he died in the garden he made, in the setting described by Morris.
