A very early photograph of Cleverly's Government House

The owner of the splendid name Charles St. George Cleverly was responsible for building the original Government House at Upper Albert Road. He had to build Upper Albert Road first, which he achieved with the help of over 2,000 convicts. Cleverly had originally been employed in the colony as Assistant Surveyor handling road works.

He was soon promoted to Surveyor General and inherited the task of finishing the construction of St. John's Cathedral in Central. He was also expected to design Government House. His work on St. John's gave him the confidence to design a "neo-classical mansion, pillard [sic] on all four sides." In its original state, it was beautifully proportioned, as can be seen from early photographs.

Generations of British aristocrats finished their education with a Grand Tour of Europe. This provided them with a classical education in the visual arts that included painting, sculpture and architecture. These wealthy aristocrats spent fortunes on incredible art collections. The Elgin Marbles almost bankrupted Lord Elgin.

The British aristocracy's love for renaissance architecture meant that their architects had to design stately homes in the style their lordships demanded. Some architects became Grand Tourists themselves but mostly they relied on superbly produced portfolios of engravings.

This in-depth knowledge was very rare among amateur colonial architects whose pseudo-classical monstrosities and Victorian Gothic follies littered the colonies of the British Empire. Almost half a century later, Governor Sir William des Voeux stuck an ugly ballroom near one end of Government House, which clashed horribly with Cleverly's lovely building.

During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in World War II, Seichi Fujimura, an employee of the South Manchurian Railway Company, completely transformed Government House into the extraordinary edifice that graces Upper Albert Road today. Fujimura, in common with Cleverly, was not a trained architect.

In spite of this, Cleverly's architecture was superb. He built the original Zetland Hall in Central, which many people consider the finest pre-World War II building in Hong Kong. It did not survive the conflict. It was destroyed in 1944 in an American air raid on the Japanese invaders.

Cleverly was proud of designing in a manner that suited Hong Kong's subtropical climate. White ants and dry rot were a major problem. He used as little timber in his buildings as possible. When he did use wood he was immensely careful. He wrote: "I have thouroughly coated it with coal tar whenever it is inserted in the walls; and previously to the laying down the floors I intend to wash the whole with a solution of arsenic, as well as adding another coat of tar where practicable."

The meticulous care spent on his fine buildings did not extend to his road works. After the Great Fire of 1851 had destroyed the Lower Bazaar at Sheung Wan, Cleverly was given the task of rebuilding and developing the area. He built Bonham Strand. The word "strand" means the land on the very edge of the sea (in this case the harbour). Sir George Bonham was Hong Kong's third governor.

Unfortunately even today water comes over the strand resulting in Bonham Strand being frequently flooded. Cleverly's architecture may have been superb, but his road works were a disaster. It was his "bad drainage, paving, and sewage which were so scathingly criticised."

There is a certain amount of snobbery attached to the term "gifted amateur." When I was a child before World War II, my father knew of a couple who had spent some years planning their own home. They hired a builder and then went on a Grand Tour of sorts without leaving a contact address. They were "gifted amateurs". The builder carried out their instructions exactly according to their detailed plans. He built them a house without a staircase.

Government House today