HKU's difficult early years recounted in new history
A chronicle of the University of Hong Kong recalls the early years before its rise togreatness, writes Linda Yeung
Despite the University of Hong Kong's enviable ranking in international league tables, it has been a long and sometimes difficult journey for the city's oldest tertiary institution, which struggled to raise funds and suffered staff shortages in its early years.
The story of HKU's early development is chronicled in A History of the University of Hong Kong, Volume 1, 1911-1945, published recently to mark its centenary. It is the first of two volumes by Peter Cunich, a history professor who became interested in the project in 2006, when an archive was established to bring together the university's scattered records.
"Doing the project let me gain an appreciation of the family nature of the university," he says.
It also took him to London, where the National Archives held valuable correspondence between former Hong Kong governors and the Colonial Office, and other places, including Russia.
The book also charts how educational institutions emerged in the city through the efforts of Christian missionaries. A prominent advocate was Robert Morrison, sent by the London Missionary Society, who believed evangelising China could be best achieved through cultural exchanges.
By the early 1880s, as more schools sprang up, Hong Kong was slowly building capacity to warrant a higher education institute. A few local residents had pursued Western educations abroad, including Yang Wing, who travelled to America in the late 1840s and returned with a degree from Yale in 1854. Ho Kai, who became a Chinese community leader and supported the founding of HKU, studied medicine and law in Britain during the 1870s.