Shau Kei Wan was the largest fishing village in the northern coast of Hong Kong Island even before the city’s open-up. It was home to a great number of boat dwellers, and with a population of over one thousand its settlement size was just second to Stanley. The cluster of fisherfolk fostered the birth of marketplace at the coast, which later developed into the famous Main Street East of Shau Kei Wan. Eastward, A Kung Ngam became the base of small shipyards.

The building of Victoria City, a major effort the British made soon after they took over Hong Kong, required bulks of construction material to be produced. To meet the heavy demand for stone, Jardine-Matheson organized extensive quarrying at A Kung Ngam to collect fill material for the East Point reclamation. Such a move amassed a crowd of stonemasons around the area, and a good number of villages, such as Fu Tau Wat Village, Ma Shan Village and Tsin Shui Ma Tau Village, began to emerge on the hills nearby. However, the rising stonemason population, in addition to the growing number of fisherfolk, worsened the condition of public hygiene and safety to the extent that Sau Kei Wan became a notorious district. In the 1860s, therefore, the government started to demolish illegal housings in the area and to revamp the coast, resulting in the development of Shau Kei Wan Road (also called Main Street West at that time), which connected King’s Road at North Point. The aforesaid marketplace, moreover, was formally developed into Shau Kei Wan Main Street (also called Main Street East).