The First Generation Building
Beaconsfield House site was originally home to the Beaconsfield Arcade (so named for Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield), built in 1878 by then Hong Kong Bank director, Calcutta-born Sephardi Jew Emanuel R Belilios and sold controversially to the government in 1898 (the Legco Public Works Committee resolution passing on Mr Belilios' own vote over a suppressed protest for pecuniary interest disqualification), and across the street from Hong Kong Bank itself and City Hall. Dent's Fountain was later added and donated by Dent & Co..
Beaconsfield was also named for a government building near Government Hill built in the late 19th Century. It was demolished to make way for the French Mission Building of 1917 (at one time also owned by Mr Belilios).
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Famous quotes containing the words generation and/or building:
“An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 12:39.
“... what’s been building since the 1980’s is a new kind of social Darwinism that blames poverty and crime and the crisis of our youth on a breakdown of the family. That’s what will last after this flurry on family values.”
—Stephanie Coontz (b. 1944)