Following the colonisation of Hong Kong in the early 1840s, the present-day Admiralty was intended to be a military complex, with the naval base situated on the seafront, and the army barracks on the hillside. This left a rather large, elongated piece of land between the two, and the gap was filled in the 1870s in the form of the
Admiralty Dock. Prior to its construction, the then governor
Sir Arthur Kennedy proposed running a narrow public road through this empty stretch of land, but this was rejected by military officials on the grounds that it would compromise military secrecy.
Kennedy Road in the
Mid-Levels was built instead. After
World War II, the naval strength of the British Empire in the
Far East diminished, and the land upon which the Admiralty Dock had been built was returned to the government. The Dock finally ceased operating in November 1959, and was demolished soon after. Due to the rapid development of
Central and
Wan Chai at that time, traffic congestion became a frequent problem in the area, and diverting traffic uphill to
Kennedy Road did not provide an adequate solution. The solution was to build a new major thoroughfare on the land
reclaimed from the demolished Admiralty Dock. The resultant Harcourt Road was built in 1961, and opened to the public that same year. It is named after
Cecil Harcourt, who was the
de facto Governor of Hong Kong, following its
liberation from the Japanese in 1945, until 1946. Within the first six months of the road's completion, 13 traffic accidents occurred on the same curve in the road. On 13 August 1962, a speed limit was introduced, stipulating that traffic mustn't exceed 35 km/h (22 mph) when passing the curve – this became the first use of speed limiting in Hong Kong. In January 2019, the
Central–Wan Chai Bypass opened, providing a parallel expressway route to Harcourt Road,
Gloucester Road,
Victoria Park Road, and
Connaught Road Central. ==Harcourt Road Flyover==