Profile | Hong Kong historian behind Gwulo.com on his years charting the city, and why he’s leaving

David Bellis talks about his 15 years documenting Hong Kong history on website Gwulo.com – mainly using his own money – and moving to the UK

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David Bellis, the founder of Hong Kong online historical repository Gwulo.com, tells the Post about charting the course of the city’s development through expatriates’ memories, and why it is time for him to leave. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Fionnuala McHugh

Published: 12:45pm, 11 Jun 2024Updated: 12:57pm, 11 Jun 2024

The first time David Bellis left Hong Kong was in June 1990.

He had spent eight months in the city, a Welsh computer programmer who had stopped off on his way to Australia and dallied longer than he had intended.

When he got to Sydney, he found he missed Hong Kong so much he signed up for a Cantonese night class at Macquarie University. By early 1992, he was back.

He settled down, married a Hongkonger called Grace and had two daughters. In 2009, he founded a website called Gwulo. You may have heard of it.

A 1923 photograph featured on Gwulo.com shows the unveiling of the Cenotaph, a war memorial in what is today Hong Kong’s Central neighbourhood. Photo: Gwulo

Many English speakers with even a fleeting interest in what Bellis terms “old Hong Kong” – i.e. the British colonial era – have probably consulted it at least once. It is a remarkable digital storehouse of, mostly, expatriate memories.

Now he is about to leave Hong Kong again. On July 21, a few weeks after his 60th birthday, he and Grace will depart for Milford Haven, in West Wales, where he grew up and where his mother, aged 92, still lives. His daughters are already studying in England.