The revolutionary beginnings of the South China Morning Post

When the first edition of the South China Morning Post hit newsstands on November 6, 1903, its co-founders Tse Tsan-tai and veteran journalist Alfred Cunningham could hardly have imagined that it would eventually become an influential English-language newspaper in Hong Kong and the Asia-Pacific region.

Just before the first publication of the newspaper, Cunningham told shareholders: "The only excuse for starting a new newspaper is that it should be something very much better and more interesting than anything we have been accustomed to in this colony."

But at the turn of the 20th century, there were already several English-language newspapers vying for just a few thousand readers in Hong Kong who were literate in English.

Andy Tse Kwok-cheong, grandson of Tse Tsan-tai, said running the Post was by no means a profit-making undertaking for his grandfather, given the limited English readership at the time.

"From a marketing point of view, the newspaper stood a high chance of suffering losses in the first few years, if not decades, of its establishment. Why the hell did Tse Tsan-tai found this 'South China Newspaper'?"

Before striking out as a newspaper man, Tse Tsan-tai, the son of a trader who had emigrated to Australia from Guangdong, was already a successful merchant who served as the comprador - or buyer - of Boyd, Kaye & Co and Shewan, Tomes & Co, two important local businesses.

In 1898, Tse, who sometimes went under the name James See, founded the Chinese Club, the Chinese business community's answer to their exclusion from existing clubs by whites.