Recent from talks
Nothing was collected or created yet.
Noonday Gun
View on Wikipedia

The Noonday Gun (Chinese: 午炮) is a former naval artillery piece mounted on a small enclosed site near the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter on Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong. Owned and operated by Jardine Matheson, the gun is fired every day at noon and has become a tourist attraction.[1]
Origin
[edit]The Noonday Gun is located on the waterfront of the area formerly known as East Point, present-day Causeway Bay. East Point was the first plot of land in Hong Kong to be sold by the colonial government by public auction in 1841, and was purchased by Jardine Matheson.[2] Over the years, land reclamation has shifted the coastline northward, and the siting of the gun has changed accordingly. The name East Point is now disused.[3]
The tradition originated over an incident in the 1860s. Jardines' main godowns and offices were located at East Point, and its private militia would fire a gun salute to welcome a Jardine tai-pan's arrival by sea. On one occasion, a senior British naval officer became annoyed by this practice because he was new to Hong Kong and did not know of such a tradition.[2] This was because such a salute was normally reserved for government officials and senior officers of the armed services. As a result, Jardines was ordered, as a penalty, to fire a gun every day at noon, in perpetuity.[4]
In 1941, during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, the Japanese Imperial Army dismantled the gun and it was lost. After British forces regained Hong Kong in 1945, the Royal Navy provided Jardines with a new six-pound gun with which to continue the tradition of the noonday gun. On 1 July 1947, the Noonday gun was back in operation.[5] Following complaints that the gun was too loud, in 1961 the marine police replaced the six-pound gun with a Hotchkiss three-pounder that saw action in the Battle of Jutland during the First World War.[2]
Tourist attraction
[edit]Although British rule ended in Hong Kong in 1997, the tradition of the noonday gun is continued by Jardine Matheson. A small crowd will gather for this daily event. Other than noon, the gun is also fired by a Jardines official at midnight every New Year's Day to celebrate the new year.[6] At the daily firing event, a Jardines' guard marches up to the site in uniform. The guard rings a bell to signal the end of the fore-noon watch, a practice which dates from the time when Jardines' main offices and warehouses were located at East Point. Then, the guard marches up to the Noonday Gun and fires it,[2] after which he rings the bell again, locks the chain blocking access to the gun and goes off. It is accessed by a tunnel passing under Gloucester Road from the basement car park in The Excelsior hotel, which is operated by Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, a Jardines subsidiary.[2] In March 2019, the Excelsior hotel was closed and slated for demolition, with plans for it to be replaced by an office building.[7]
For a donation of HK$48,000 to the Community Chest charity, anyone can arrange to pull the lanyard that fires the gun.[8]
In popular culture
[edit]The firing of the gun was famously mentioned in Noël Coward's humorous song "Mad Dogs and Englishmen".[1][4]
In Hong Kong, they strike a gong, and fire off a noonday gun
To reprimand each inmate who's in late.
See also
[edit]- Noon Gun: Signal Hill, Cape Town, South Africa
- One O'Clock Gun: Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland.
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Noon Day Gun". Discover Hong Kong. Archived from the original on 18 May 2011. Retrieved 31 March 2011.
- ^ a b c d e The Legend of the Jardines Noonday Gun. Hong Kong: Jardines. 2010.
- ^ What’s the story behind the Noonday Gun?, HK Magazine, 4 June 2015
- ^ a b Michael Ingham (2007). Hong Kong: A Cultural History. Oxford University Press. pp. 76–77. ISBN 978-0-19-972447-5.
- ^ Andrew Stone; Chung Wah Chow; Reggie Ho (15 January 2008). Hong Kong and Macau. Lonely Planet. pp. 73–. ISBN 978-1-74104-665-6. Retrieved 29 August 2010.
- ^ "Midnight Gun Heralds New Year", Thistle (2011 vol. 1), Hong Kong: Jardine Matheson Ltd.
- ^ "Hong Kong's iconic Excelsior hotel to shut in March 2019". South China Morning Post. 9 October 2018. Retrieved 24 December 2021.
- ^ https://www.commchest.org/en/event/noonday-gun-for-the-chest
External links
[edit]Noonday Gun
View on GrokipediaHistory
Origins and Early Tradition
The site of the Noonday Gun occupies land at the former East Point in present-day Causeway Bay, acquired by Jardine Matheson & Co. through the British colonial government's inaugural public land auction on June 14, 1841, for £565.[7][8] This purchase aligned with the company's relocation of its headquarters from mainland China to Hong Kong Island following the colony's establishment, positioning it amid burgeoning maritime trade routes.[7] The auction marked the initial formal allocation of urban lots, yielding £3,238 annually in rents and underscoring early colonial efforts to fund infrastructure via land sales.[9] The daily noon firing tradition commenced in the 1860s under Jardine Matheson auspices, utilizing naval artillery to provide a precise time signal for vessels in Victoria Harbour and laborers in the settlement.[6][10] This practice supported navigational accuracy and operational coordination in an era when chronometers were scarce and sunlight-based timekeeping unreliable, thereby bolstering Hong Kong's role as a entrepôt for opium, tea, and silk exchanges.[4] A 21-pounder gun, initially emplaced by the firm on its waterfront premises, facilitated the ritual, reflecting the integration of military surplus ordnance into commercial routines.[11] Accounts attribute the shift to midday firing to an edict from a Royal Navy admiral, reportedly irked by Jardine Matheson's morning salutes honoring their Tai-pan—a civilian merchant head—as these mimicked honors reserved for military superiors.[6][12] The officer, enforcing naval protocol amid colonial hierarchies, mandated perpetual noon discharges to preempt such improprieties, transforming a punitive measure into an enduring temporal marker.[13] While this narrative persists in historical retellings, its evidentiary basis remains anecdotal, with the time-signaling function providing a more empirically grounded rationale for the custom's persistence.[1]Wartime Interruption and Post-War Revival
During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, which commenced after the territory's surrender on December 25, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Army dismantled the original Noonday Gun, rendering the daily firing tradition inoperable for the duration of World War II.[1][14][5] This interruption aligned with broader disruptions to colonial infrastructure under occupation, as Japanese forces repurposed or destroyed British-era assets to consolidate control.[15] Following Japan's surrender and the British reoccupation of Hong Kong in late August 1945, the Royal Navy promptly supplied a replacement six-pounder gun to Jardine Matheson, enabling the resumption of the noon firing shortly thereafter.[1][5][14] This rapid reinstatement, amid the challenges of post-war demobilization and repatriation of over 1.5 million Japanese troops from the region, reflected the British administration's prioritization of familiar routines to signal stability and facilitate economic recovery in a territory whose GDP had contracted sharply during occupation.[15] The revival of the Noonday Gun served as a tangible marker of restored order, underscoring the tradition's perceived utility in timekeeping and public synchronization during Hong Kong's transition from wartime devastation to pre-eminent trading hub status by the early 1950s.[5][1] The deliberate continuity, despite resource constraints, evidenced its embedded role in colonial governance and commercial operations, distinct from ephemeral wartime measures.Continuation Through Hong Kong's Handover
The Noonday Gun maintained its daily firing schedule without interruption through Hong Kong's handover to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997, transitioning seamlessly from British colonial administration to the Special Administrative Region era. Jardine Matheson, the British-founded trading conglomerate that has owned and operated the gun since its inception in the 1860s, retained full operational control post-handover, with no changes mandated by the incoming authorities.[12][2] In contrast to other colonial symbols—such as certain British military traditions or place names—that faced phase-outs or rebranding in the immediate post-1997 period, the Noonday Gun encountered no official challenges or discontinuation attempts from Hong Kong or Beijing authorities. This persistence reflects the tradition's practical role as a public time signal, audible across Causeway Bay and beyond, rather than a politically charged emblem requiring revision. Jardine Matheson staff continued the ritual, firing the three-pound Hotchkiss cannon precisely at noon daily, underscoring the company's enduring presence in the territory despite its relocation of headquarters to Bermuda in 1988 and broader strategic shifts amid geopolitical changes.[4][10] As of 2025, the Noonday Gun operates uninterrupted, with firings confirmed daily at noon and additionally at midnight on New Year's Eve, supporting timekeeping functions in an era of digital alternatives while bolstering Hong Kong's economic and touristic continuity. Visitor accounts and tourism records affirm the practice's reliability, with crowds gathering along the typhoon shelter promenade for the event, which generates charitable proceeds for local causes through special firing privileges. This operational stability amid Hong Kong's post-handover economic resilience—marked by sustained GDP growth and international trade—highlights the gun's apolitical utility over symbolic contestation.[5][16][17]Description and Mechanism
Location and Physical Setup
The Noonday Gun occupies a small enclosed platform adjacent to the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter on the northern waterfront of Hong Kong Island's Causeway Bay district.[1] This harborside location positions the installation directly along the edge of Victoria Harbour, facilitating acoustic propagation across the water body to surrounding areas.[2] The platform forms part of the broader typhoon shelter precinct, which includes pedestrian promenades enhanced through recent urban revitalization efforts as of 2023.[18] Structurally, the site incorporates protective barriers and fencing to ensure safety and limit unauthorized access, maintaining the gun's isolation within its dedicated enclosure while allowing distant observation from public pathways.[1] Since its post-World War II reconfiguration, the gun has remained in a static mounting on this concrete platform, embedded amid the district's commercial high-rises and maritime facilities but cordoned off from the adjacent urban promenade.[19] The enclosure's design emphasizes containment, with entry restricted via controlled underpasses beneath Gloucester Road, preserving the site's operational integrity amid dense city infrastructure.[17]Technical Specifications and Firing Process
The Noonday Gun consists of a Quick-Firing (QF) 3-pounder Hotchkiss, a light naval artillery piece developed in 1886 with a 47 mm (1.85-inch) caliber, designed primarily for defense against torpedo boats through rapid semi-automatic reloading via a vertically sliding breech block and fixed ammunition.[20][21] The gun barrel measures approximately 2.05 meters in overall length, weighs about 240 kg (528 lb) without its mount, and features rifled steel construction for enhanced accuracy and velocity with its nominal 1.4 kg (3 lb) projectile charge, though adapted here for non-lethal use.[21][22] This model, produced by the Hotchkiss company, represented an early advancement in quick-firing artillery, enabling rates of up to 20-25 rounds per minute under optimal crew conditions, though the Noonday Gun's single-shot ceremonial operation does not utilize this full capacity.[23] The firing sequence is performed daily by a single uniformed attendant from Jardine Matheson, who manually inserts a blank cartridge—typically a self-contained brass-cased round with propellant but no projectile—into the breech mechanism shortly before noon.[10][24][25] The gun, fixed in a permanent waterfront mount with limited traverse for safety, is elevated to a horizontal firing angle and discharged precisely at 12:00 p.m. Hong Kong Time (UTC+8), synchronized to local solar noon adjusted for standard timekeeping.[2][11] This manual process adheres to traditional naval protocols, including a brief ceremonial preparation to ensure reliability, and produces a sharp acoustic report without shrapnel or recoil hazards beyond the mount's design.[10] The blast's sound propagates over several kilometers, historically enabling synchronization for maritime navigation, shipping schedules, and trade operations in an era predating widespread electronic clocks, with audibility reported up to several miles under favorable conditions despite urban attenuation.[26][5] Post-1961 modifications, including replacement of a louder six-pounder predecessor with this three-pounder variant, reduced noise complaints while preserving the signal's functional range for timekeeping purposes.[11]Ownership and Operational Context
Role of Jardine Matheson
Jardine Matheson & Co., founded in 1832 by Scottish merchants William Jardine and James Matheson as a trading house specializing in opium, cotton, and tea, established a significant presence in Hong Kong following the colony's cession to Britain in 1841. The company acquired East Point, the site of the future Causeway Bay where the Noonday Gun is located, through the first public land auction held that year, developing it into warehouses and industrial facilities central to their import-export operations.[6][1] By the 1860s, Jardine Matheson assumed responsibility for the Noonday Gun tradition on their property, initially firing salutes irregularly to honor the company taipan upon arrival by sea, a practice that reportedly irritated a Royal Navy officer who mandated daily firings at noon as a penalty, transforming it into a reliable time signal for maritime navigation. This stewardship aligned with the firm's role in facilitating Hong Kong's trade-dependent economy, where precise timekeeping aided ship captains in synchronizing chronometers for safe harbor operations. Jardine Matheson has owned and operated the gun continuously since, evolving from a 19th-century trading entity into a multinational conglomerate while preserving this ritual as a marker of corporate continuity.[12][6] The company's record demonstrates consistent execution, with the gun fired daily without major interruptions except during the Japanese occupation from 1941 to 1945, when it was dismantled; post-war resumption occurred in 1945 using a replacement provided by British forces. This reliability supported Hong Kong's maritime sector by offering an audible noon reference, complementing emerging technologies like radio signals and underscoring Jardine Matheson's embedded role in the port city's logistical infrastructure.[27][5]