The riots started as peaceful demonstrations against the British colonial government's decision to increase the fare of Star Ferry foot-passenger harbour crossing by 25 percent.

The Star Ferry was an important link between the Kowloon Peninsula and Hong Kong Island before the Cross-Harbour Tunnel was built in 1972.

[citation needed] In the morning of 4 April, So Sau-chung (蘇守忠), a 27-year-old man who worked as a translator, began a hunger strike protest at the Star Ferry Terminal in Central District.

So wore a black jacket upon which he had hand-written the words "Hail Elsie", "Join hunger strike to block fare increase".

[3] That evening, over 1,000 people gathered in Tsim Sha Tsui, demonstrating against So's arrest and the government's support for the Star Ferry company's fare increase.

[3] On the busy thoroughfare Nathan Road, mobs threw stones at buses and set vehicles on fire.

Riot police fired tear gas in response, but people continued to gather in Nathan Road, with the mob almost doubling in size once Hong Kong's cinemas closed at midnight.

Hundreds of people attempted, unsuccessfully, to set fire to the Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok Police stations.

There were huge queues for public transport when workers went home early, and the city was like a ghost town one hour before the curfew.

After the riot, the colonial government of David Trench set up the Kowloon Disturbances Commission of Inquiry, presided over by Justice Michael Hogan, aimed at identifying the cause, in particular, the social elements that underlay the outbreak of violence.

So, and a few others, staged a protest in Mong Kok until April when So was arrested and sentenced to Castle Peak Psychiatric Hospital for 14 days.

The Edinburgh Place Star Ferry pier, where the riots originated, was included in the controversial Central waterfront redevelopment project in 2007.