Things weren't looking good at the outset. The government of Hong Kong after the British took over in 1841 was a motley crew of neither the best nor most able characters. A catalogue of mismanagement, corruption, conflicts of interest and petty rivalries in the tiny expatriate population led the frustrated Times to exclaim that Hong Kong was not a place 'that should be mentioned to ears polite'.
In the first two decades of British rule in Hong Kong, governance was appalling - so bad, in fact, that the notion of administrative efficiency was a joke and corruption reached the highest levels. It took nearly 20 years for Hong Kong to become self-financing, much longer than the British government had anticipated. The new colony was seen as an underperforming financial burden full of pompous has-beens who couldn't run it.
But that was before the civil service was introduced through administrative officers - or cadets, as they were known - who brought to government a sense of responsibility, honesty and integrity.
'The deployment of the first cadets in government service effectively laid the foundation for a modern civil service based on merit in Hong Kong,' says historian and author Steve Tsang Yui-sang.
His book, Governing Hong Kong: Administrative Officers from the Nineteenth Century to the Handover to China, 1862-1997, takes a look at that administration, which provided the stable backdrop against which Hong Kong was to become the successful city it is today.
'In the course of my research for A Modern History of Hong Kong it became clear to me that the administrative officers played an extraordinary role in delivering good governance,' he says.