[3] George Rankine Lapraik was originally from Muirkirk, Ayrshire in western Scotland and worked as an expat in London for Scottish trading firm William Mathieson & Company.

[2] Lapraik arrived in Macao in 1839 and became apprentice to a Scottish watch and clockmaker named Leonard Just at his company, Just & Son.

Soon after arriving in the colony, Lapraik established himself with his own business as a watchmaker by 1846, apparently concurrently while executing similar duties for Just & Son.

The tower, which stood at the corner of Pedder Street and Queen's Road Central, could be seen from Victoria Harbour and debuted on New Year's Eve 1862, standing until 1913.

[2] In 1864, Lapraik went on to be appointed as a member of the provisional founders committee of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation which would be founded in 1865.

[10] 1865 was also the year that Lapraik began his involvement as a founding Director in the Hongkong Hotel Company together with Dutchman Charles Henri Maurice Bosman (father of Ho Fook and Robert Hotung), a Director of the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company and a German, Baron Gustav von Overbeck, the Prussian and Austrian Consul in Hong Kong.

[12][13] Lapraik left Hong Kong and returned to London in mid 1866, apparently due to health issues.

[2] Between 1856 and 1861, Lapraik together with George Chape brought a suit as plaintiffs against the Respondent, Silas Enoch Burrows, in a suit which traveled from the lower Vice Admiralty Court before finally in 1859, being heard before the High Court of Hong Kong concerning the disputed ownership of the steamer SS Australia.

Costs of the repairs in question exceeded the actual value of the ship, exacerbated by the debts accrued for wages and expenses owed.

The case helped to develop the concept of agency by necessity in case law as it relates to commercial law which grants the master of the ship the responsibility of acting as agent for the owner of any vessel in the existence of emergency situations, inability to communicate with the principal and provided that such agent is acting in good faith.