Pedder Street

Pedder Street
Pedder Street in 2015
Pedder Street in the 1870s
Traditional Chinese	畢打街
Transcriptions Yue: Cantonese Jyutping bat1 daa1 gaai1

Pedder Street is a major thoroughfare in the core of Hong Kong's Central District. It runs south-north from Queen's Road Central, continues through Des Voeux Road Central, and ends at its intersection with Connaught Road Central.

The street was named after , first lieutenant of the Nemesis, Britain's first ocean-going iron warship, and the first harbour master of Hong Kong. Pedder Street was established as the centre of Victoria City's commerce in the early colonial days.

The premises of Hong Kong's two most powerful trading hongs at the time, Dent & Co. and Jardine, Matheson & Co., were located on The Praya Central, Victoria City's original waterfront, on the opposite sides of Pedder Street. Dent & Co., one of the key founding members of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, had a huge sprawling complex which stretched along the Praya, and a west wing which abutted Pedder street. Dent's suffered financial collapse in 1866 and its demise shook the commercial world throughout the Far East.

Originally, Pedder Street ran from Pedder's Hill, where the Harbour Master's Office was established, south to north ending at Pedder's Wharf on the Praya. The street was extended north by 1904 when the Praya Reclamation Scheme finished transforming the old Praya into the modern day Des Voeux Road, along with a stretch of land north to it up to Connaught Road on which the General Post Office and Union Building were built.

The new pier built at the end of Pedder Street following the reclamation was named "Blake Pier" after the city's 13th Governor.