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Queen's College basks in role as cradle of leaders

EDUCATION IS PRIZED in Hong Kong for the practical reason that it helps people get good jobs, and entry to the top schools can lead to getting the very best ones.

St Paul's Co-Educational College is the alma mater of Arthur Li Kwok-cheung, Secretary for Education and Manpower. Charles Kao, a pioneer in fibre optics and former vice-chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, attended St Joseph's College. Wah Yan College Hong Kong is where the Chief Executive, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, studied.

As for Queen's College, now located in Causeway Bay, it has educated the largest number of academically brilliant students, accounting for a quarter of all students gaining 10 straight As in the HKCEE examination in the past 15 years. Alumni include Chief Secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan and Secretary for Justice Wong Yan-lung. Philanthropist Sir Robert Hotung (1862-1956) supported Queen's for decades and today, another alumnus, Henry Fok Ying-tung, supports it by way of donations and through personal contact with students and staff.

So greatly did Sir Robert respect Queen's and its first headmaster, Dr Frederick Stewart, that he maintained and visited Stewart's grave in Happy Valley to the end of his life. The Hotung family continues to do so.

Alumni became clerks and compradors, merchants and magistrates, legislators and philanthropists, revolutionaries and reformers, including Dr Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Chinese Republic, Tang Shaoyi, its premier, and Sir Kai Ho Kai, first Chinese general practitioner in Hong Kong.

There is controversy, though, surrounding what should be done with the original Queen's site between Hollywood Road, Aberdeen, Staunton and Shing Wong streets.

Not much remains except the boundary walls and a set of steps, easily recognisable from old photographs. Plans to develop the site mean that even they may soon disappear. The land was rezoned for residential development in 1998, but, following representations by Roger Ho Yao-sheng, conservation activist and chairman of the Mid-levels Concern Group, among others, at a Central and Western District Board meeting last month, the board is seeking a return to the previous zoning - for government and community use. The Antiquities and Monuments Office and the Antiquities Advisory Board are to meet on Tuesday to decide whether to keep the wall and main gate.

The concern group argues it is in the public interest to establish a historical and cultural heritage zone. They and other conservationists want the walls and gates preserved and a heritage corner created.

Queen's College started life as the Hong Kong Government Central School for Boys on a nearby site in 1862, changing its name to Victoria College after moving to the site currently in question in 1889. With many institutions having 'Victoria' in their name, it became Queen's College in 1894.

The school was gutted by looters during the second world war and a married quarters for junior police officers was later built on the site with the school rehoused in the new purpose-built building in Causeway Bay in 1950.The original building was much loved. Former Queen's College history teacher, the late Gwenneth Stokes and her husband, former Queen's College principal John Stokes, referred to the grand building as the 'Old Lady of Aberdeen Street', in their book Queen's College Its History 1862-1987, and current students and alumni are as proud of their history as they are of their present achievements.

Luk Wai-hung, vice-president of the Queen's College Old Boys' Association, said: 'All Queen's College alumni feel affection for their school and pride in its reputation and history.'

The association is working with the school and the Museum of History on an exhibition to mark its 145th anniversary next year.

The significance of the site goes beyond the history of one school. It represents the beginning of the government's strong support for education and the determination of the local community that east and west should learn about and from each other.

In his speech at the Queen's College Speech Day in December, chief secretary Rafael Hui said: 'This school has a very special place in Hong Kong's history. I need hardly remind you that it began life in 1862 as the first secondary school ever established [by the government] in Hong Kong.' It published 'the very first Chinese school magazine in the world' in 1899.

If they looked through their honour rolls, he reminded his student audience, they would find, 'the names of many who have figured prominently in the annals of our society'. Dr Joseph Ting, of the Hong Kong Museum of History, has written: 'The founding of the Central School in 1862 marked an innovative step in the process of local education.'

The site used to boast the school that paved the way for today's education system of government and aided schools. Its imminent redevelopment of now provides an opportunity to embody a celebration of Hong Kong's educational history and heritage.

Dr Gillian Bickley is author of 'The Golden Needle: The Biography of Frederick Stewart (1836-1889)' and editor of 'The Development of Education in Hong Kong, 1841-1897: as Revealed by the Early Education Reports of the Hong Kong Government, 1848-1896'.

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