Cover David Bellis (Photo: Instagram/@gwulo_hk)
David Bellis (Photo: Instagram/@gwulo_hk)
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King Charles III approved the awarding of the British Empire Medal to David Bellis for his work in archiving and preserving Hong Kong’s historic photos, oral accounts and stories
David Bellis, the founder of Hong Kong history website Gwulo.com, was given the British Empire Medal in the New Year’s Honours List 2025 by King Charles III of the UK on December 31, 2024, for his service to “heritage preservation in Hong Kong”.
Bellis, originally from Wales, came to Hong Kong in 1989 and decided to make Hong Kong his home in 1992. In 2009, he founded Gwulo.com as a passion project. Today, the online database has archived more than 30,000 photos and 50,000 stories of old Hong Kong, with the earliest one dating back to 1840. His sources range from accounts from historians and specialists to materials from libraries, government records, old Hong Kong newspapers and maps.
When Bellis was notified about his award in early December, he thought it was a scam. “I received an email saying I’d receive good news if I called a certain Hong Kong mobile number. It looked to have come from the British Consulate in Hong Kong, but I just thought ‘The spammers are getting really sophisticated these days’, and deleted it!”, he mentions on Gwulo.com. “The next day I was contacted with similar messages via Facebook and Gwulo.com, and luckily I did call, and it was good news.”
He thanks the contributors who have given their time and research to his website, and adds, on a cheeky note, that “I like to think the nomination happened after King Charles was reminiscing about visiting Hong Kong, and found us after googling for family photos.”
The New Year Honours are appointments by King Charles III to recognise individuals who have done great services for or created great impacts on their own disciplines or communities. The other Hongkongers who have been recognised in the list include locally-based English theatre director and writer Lindsey McAlister OBE and Hong Kong businessman and socialite Sir David Tang KBE.
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Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
