Noon-Day Gun / Jardine's Gun

On the stroke of noon every day, opposite the Excelsior Hotel, a brief but historically significant event takes place: after a symbolic chime of a bell, a liveried gunner fires a shot from a cannon to give the official time signal for Hong Kong.

This firing of a cannon goes back to the time when the firm of Jardine Matheson and Co., which still exists, was the colony's largest trading company. After moving its head offices from Canton and Macau to Hong Kong when "Lot No. 1" (actually on the opposite side of the street, immediately in front of the Excelsior Hotel) came up for auction, the firm played a large part in making Hong Kong one of the world's leading financial centers. The obligation to fire the cannon goes back to a sentence imposed on the firm by the British governor. To protect their tea-clippers, Jardine Matheson kept their own company of troops, and whenever one of the ships with a taipan (important businessman) on board reached Hong Kong harbor after a dangerous voyage through pirate-infested waters the cannon was fired to greet it, even though this was against regulations. This incurred the displeasure of the British governor, who decreed that in future the company must fire the cannon every day at noon as a time signal for the whole colony.

What started as a punishment has developed into a tradition. The present cannon, standing on a stone platform, actually dates only from 1982, when it was funded by the Gammon Building Construction Ltd to mark the 150th anniversary of Jardine Matheson. The little square in front of the cannon, where onlookers can view the event at close quarters, is reached through a narrow tunnel, the semi-concealed entrance to which lies in an underground parking lot near the Excelsior Hotel.

It came as a bombshell when, because of the uncertainties surrounding the colony's future, Jardine Matheson decided in 1986 to move their headquarters to the Cayman Islands. "It is like the Queen of England seeking asylum in Australia" was the comment by a journalist on the much respected "Hong Kong Standard".