His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Dyfed presented a British Empire Medal at County Hall recently to honour local historian David Bellis at a special ceremony in the Council Chamber.

Miss Sara Edwards was presenting the honour to Mr Bellis, who was named in the New Years Honours for his services to Heritage Preservation in Hong Kong.

Mr Bellis is the founder of the website Gwulo.com which has developed into an online database, archiving Hong Kong photographs, information, maps and memories.

It is the largest digital archive of Hong Kong history with more than 50,000 historical pages and 30,000 images.

Pembrokeshire County Council Chairman, Cllr Maureen Bowen hosted the event on May 29, and highlighted the fascinating collection to be found at Gwulo.com

The Lord-Lieutenant, said: “On behalf of His Majesty The King, it was an honour and an enormous privilege to present Mr David Bellis with the British Empire Medal.”

Mr Bellis was joined by his family for the special occasion.

Assisting the Lord-Lieutenant for the ceremony were Pembrokeshire Lord-Lieutenant Cadets Mariana Lemon, Archie Measey and Finley Fells.

Also in attendance to celebrate Mr Bellis’ honour were the Leader of Pembrokeshire County Council, Cllr Jon Harvey and the High Sheriff of Dyfed, Ann Jones.

Mr Bellis left Hong Kong with his wife Grace last summer to return to his native Wales, do he could be closer to his 92-year-old mother. His two daughters were already studying in the UK.

He first headed to Hong Kong in 1989, and returned in early 1992.

Trained as a computer programmer, in 2002, he started a blog with a friend with the idea of writing about their lives.

A couple of years later, they added a forum, and in 2006 – with Mr Bellis’ programming skills coming in handy – they allowed people to start uploading photos.