Then & Now | The Portuguese amateur historian of Hong Kong and Macau, José Maria ‘Jack’ Braga, whose work still resonates 35 years after his death
- Hong Kong-born Portuguese scholar José Maria ‘Jack’ Braga was among a group of amateur historians who dug up a mine of information for future generations
- He and his father wrote a noted history of Portuguese settlement in Hong Kong and Macau, and he befriended fellow amateur historians such as Austin Coates
Since Hong Kong’s mid-19th century urban beginnings, quiet, painstaking independent research work undertaken by a wide range of amateur local scholars – all drawn from a variety of ethnic backgrounds – has resulted in extraordinary resource sets from which others have benefited.
Creation of archival material for the future was, however, not their original intention. Private study, by and large, was undertaken to help satisfy individual subject interests; a desire for some form of wealth, renown or career advancement was seldom a motivation.
Along the way, the steady spadework that resulted from their various distractions and digressions unearthed unexpected riches for others to utilise.
Beneficiaries have ranged from professional academic scholars, who transformed collations of raw primary source data into more detailed, wide-ranging research articles, to general authors who then used their own distinctive writing and storytelling skills to produce popular-orientated historical works based on the findings of others.
One such individual, whose decades of quiet burrowing benefited – and continues to benefit – a variety of other writers was Hong Kong-born José Maria “Jack” Braga (1897-1988).
