The house with the bamboo scaffolding on the left side of this 1846 print of Queen's Road was the first building on Duddell Street.

In great cities, streets are often named after great men and women. In Hong Kong's early colonial days they sometimes took the name of the owner of the land on which the street was built. The careers of these pioneer street builders were often not without blemish.

Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of England's greatest poets, but surprisingly no street in London carries his name. Hong Kong's small community of English culture-vultures may be delighted that there is a street in Central called Shelley Street. It is above Hollywood Road by the Mid-Levels escalator, but unfortunately it is named after a drunk.

Adolphus Edward Shelley was basically a confidence trickster. In 1844, "Armed with an introduction from Lord Stanley, Secretary of State", Shelley conned Sir John Davis, Hong Kong's second governor, into appointing him Auditor-General. Davis soon realised his mistake and accused Shelley of being "dissipated, in debt, negligent, guilty of falsehood and quite unfit for high office" - all of which was true.

Shelley bullied his staff into lending him money which he had no intention of ever paying back. He used the cash to speculate on the property market. When it collapsed he sold his "investment" to George Duddell, of Duddell Street (another con man) and then ran away to Mauritius where he conned his way into the post of Assistant Auditor-General.

Duddell, as the new owner of Shelley Street, discovered that he was forced to pay a large amount of money that Shelley owed to the government. Duddell was a dubious businessman and a crooked auctioneer. When asked to auction a ship, he sold it to himself for a ridiculously low price, and got caught. The Chief Justice ordered a new auction and the vessel was sold for $400 - a colossal amount of money in the 1840s. In spite of this, Duddell was later appointed Government Auctioneer.

During the Arrow War, after there had been a failed attempt to poison the entire foreign population of the colony, Duddell opened a "poison-proof" bakery that was immediately burnt down by Chinese terrorists. He also owned the icehouse where he was rumoured to run an illegal craps game. Today Duddell Street has become a tourist attraction, but only because the last two functioning Victorian gas lamps in Hong Kong can be found on Duddell Steps in Central.

The biggest villain of that era was Dr WT Bridges. He was a lawyer in private practice, but due to the shortage of civil servants he also acted as the ad hoc Colonial Secretary, the most powerful job in government after the governor. Bridges was allowed to continue his private business. In 1856, he awarded the Opium monopoly to one of his clients who had retained him to advise him on how to gain that monopoly. When his friend Daniel Caldwell, a crooked police magistrate, was accused of being in league with a notorious pirate, known as Horse Grass Wong, Dr Bridges burnt the evidence. He had gone too far. There was a parliamentary inquiry and wisely, Dr Bridges fled the colony.

Dr Bridges is best known today as being largely responsible for creating the Hong Kong Cricket Club. Bridges Street is now a part of the Dr Sun Yat Sen Historical Trail. This is because the great man, who was the first president of China, was baptised at 2 Bridges Street in the Preaching Hall of the American Congregational Mission, in 1880.