The First Ladies

Updated (partial) on October 21, 2010

January 12, 2001 photo of Anson Chan being hugged
by Tung Chee-wah after her announcement of retirement
as the Chief Secretary.

Government Head Honcho of Chinese Descent
Anson Maria Elizabeth Chan Fong On-sang 陳方安生, generally known as Anson Chan (b.1940 Shanghai - )

In 1993, Chan was appointed the last Chief Secretary of the colonial Hong Kong government, and became the first ethnic Chinese to hold the highest government position next to the Governor who was a British Queen appointee. Chan joined the civil service in 1962 as an administrative service cadet, rising to Assistant Financial Secretary in the Financial Branch of the Colonial Secretary in 1970, the first woman to attain that post, after stints in various departments. She helped establish the Association of Female Senior Government Officer to fight for equal rights, most particularly in wages, with their men counterparts. She was appointed Director of Social Welfare in 1984 and became the first female civil service director ever appointed. Chan stayed on in the Chief Secretary position in the Tung Chee-wah’s cabinet and stepped down in April 2001. She was succeeded by Donald Tsang. She married Archibald Chan Tai-wing 陳棣榮 who was a businessman, a former science teacher of St. Joseph’s College and a retired Commandant of the Hong Kong Auxiliary Police.

Tennis Wonder Girl
Venise Chan Wing-yau 陳詠悠 – In 2005 took the titles in the Girls’ Singles and Doubles events at the International Tennis Federation Grade 4 Chinese Taipei International Junior Championships. This moved her junior world rank from 164th to 83rd - the best achievement ever for Hong Kong tennis in the world junior ranking.

Woman University Graduate
Irene Cheng, nee Ho-tung 何奇姿, later changed to 何艾齡 (b. October 21, 1904 Hong Kong – d. February 17, 2007 San Diego) – In 1925, Cheng completed her undergrad studies at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Hong Kong and became the first Hong Kong-born woman graduate, with a degree in English. She entered the university in 1921 when it began to admit women students nine years after its establishment in 1912. Cheng went on to be trained as a teacher at the King's College of the University of London before she received a master degree from Teachers' College at Columbia University in New York in 1929. Cheng was presented at the Buckingham Palace to Queen Mary in 1932, and obtained her PhD from the University of London in 1936. After a stint teaching at Guangdong’s Lingnan University, Cheng returned to Hong Kong after the war to work in the Education Department. At the time of her retirement in 1961, she was the highest ranking Chinese women in the department. She was created an OBE in 1961. Cheng is the daughter of Robert and Clara Ho-tung. In 1930s, she married Beijing engineer Cheng Sheung-sin 鄭湘先 who was the maternal great-great-grandson of Lin Zexu 林則徐, the Qing Imperial Commissioner sent to Guangdong to suppress the importation and sale of opium. Lin’s bold actions had led to The First Opium War and the subsequent ceding of Hong Kong. Cheng died in 2007 San Diego, California. She was 102.

Woman Airport General Manager

Vivian Cheung, nee Lee 張李佳蕙 – In 2006, Cheung assumed the post of General Manager of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai Airport Management Company Limited (HKZHAM) 珠港機場管理有限公司 and became the first woman general manager of a Mainland airport. HKZAM, Mainland’s first joint venture airport operator whose majority interests are held by the foreign partner - Airport Authority Hong Kong (AAHK), has managed the Zhuhai Airport since October 1, 2006. Cheung graduated from the State University of New York in 1983 with a degree in computer science. She received a MBA degree from the Illinois State University. After a stint with General Electric in the States, Cheung joined AAHK in 1992 where her chief purview had included the construction and management of the control center of the Chek Lap Kok Airport, from there she moved on to learn and master the multiplicity tasks of operating an airport. She was Deputy General Manager of AAHK before taking the helm at Zhuhai.

Chairwoman of Chamber of Commerce

Lily Chiang 蔣麗莉 (b.1961 Hong Kong- ) – In 2007, Chiang was elected the first woman chairperson in the 136-years history of the General Chamber of Commerce of Hong Kong. The CEO of Eco-Tek Holdings, Chiang held a great number of public offices including Vocational Training Council, Town Planning Board, Hospital Authority, Barristers Disciplinary Tribunal Panel, etc. She was awarded Ten Outstanding Young Persons in Hong Kong (1999), Outstanding Woman in the Scientific / Technology Sector (2001), The Future Leader in China in the Financial Sector (2003) and The Most Creative Chinese Business Leader (2005). On January 8, 2008 the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) brought charges against the celebrated Chiang in connection with an alleged $7.5 million share-option fraud. The legation is ongoing.

Canadian Governor-General of Asian Descent

Adrienne Louise Clarkson, nee Poy - In 1999, Clarkson became the first Canadian Governor-General of Asian origin. Clarkson was born on February 10, 1939 in Hong Kong as Ng Bing-tse 伍冰枝. The family moved to Canada in 1941 and she became known as Adrienne Poy. She was a well-known broadcaster and journalist. She was appointed Agent-General of Ontario in Paris between 1982 and 1987. She married Stephen Clarkson, a university professor and the couple had three daughters. They divorced in 1975. She remarried John Ralston Saul but retained the surname Clarkson. She retired from the governorship in 2005 and was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II as Colonel-in-Chief of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. The Hong Kong-born Toronto Senator married Clarkson’s brother, Neville G. Poy.

Woman Pilot

Perveen Crawford, nee Khan – In 1995, Crawford obtained her private pilot’s license and became the first woman pilot in Hong Kong. Daughter of a Hong Kong policeman Perveen Khan who was partly Turkish, Persian and Mongolian, Crawford finished school in Hong Kong and worked for Cathay Pacific as a stewardess. She won two beauty queen titles from airlines related pageants while working with the Hong Kong flag carrier. She went from modeling to direct selling after quitting Cathay Pacific. In 2005, Crawford met Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin Group, at a party in Hong Kong. Impressed with her being the first private pilot in Hong Kong, Branson invited her to partake in the space flight of Virgin Galactic in 2009, not for free though. Crawford was Branson’s first paid-up customer and the ticket price: a cool US$200,000. Crawford may well be the first space traveler from Hong Kong. Crawford lives with husband John, CEO of Crawford Consultants Limited and previously a founding partner of Ernst & Young (HK), and their three children in Hong Kong.

Judy Dan (5th from left) posted with other 1952 Miss Universe finalists.Beauty Queen Went to Hollywood

Judy Dan 但茱迪 (b. 1931 Shanghai - ) – Dan, Miss Hong Kong in 1952, played the role of a Royal Wife in the 1956 Twentieth Century Fox musical 'The King and I' that starred Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner and become the first credited actress from Hong Kong to appear in a US blockbuster production. Dan was also the third runner-up in the very first Miss Universe beauty pageant. Judy Dan is the daughter of Chinese film director Dan Du-yu 但杜宇 and actress Yan Ming-zhu 殷明珠. She worked for the Cathay Pacific Airlines (not as a flight stewardess) prior to part taking in the Miss Hong Kong Beauty Contest.


Female Member of an Assassination Group
Ding Xiangtian 丁湘田 – In 1910, Ding became the first (and remained the only) woman member of the Hong Kong-based assassination group - The China Assassination Corps 支那暗殺團 – founded by her long time boyfriend Liu Shifu 劉思複. The two had a son, but never got married.

Baroness

Lydia Selina Dunn 鄧蓮如 (b.1940 Hong Kong - )– In 1990, Dunn was made a life peer by Queen Elizabeth II as "Baroness Dunn, of Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong and of Knightsbridge in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea" – essentially the first and only Baroness of Hong Kong. A successful business woman, Dunn was the first woman to be appointed Senior Unofficial Member in the Legislative and Executive Councils. Dunn, as the first woman, chaired the Hong Kong Trade Development Council from 1983 to 1991. She became HSBC’s first woman deputy chairman in 1992, a position she held until 2008. She is married to Michael David Thomas, Hong Kong’s Attorney General from 1983 to 1988.

Hospital Matron
Clara Eastmond - In 1889, Eastmond arrived in Hong Kong to take up the position of the matron in the Government Civil Hospital to take charge of the first nursing staff of trained nurses from the London Hospital.

Rtia Fan’s Graduation
photo, HKU class of 67Speaker of Legislative Council - Post Colonial Period

Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai 范徐麗泰 (b.1945 Shanghai - ) - In 1997, Fan became the President of the Provisional Legislative Council (1997-1998) established in Guangzhou by PRC, and became the first woman Speaker of the Council. She continued to hold that position when the Legislative Council was re-established in Hong Kong in 1998. She declined to be re-elected when her term concluded in 2008. Fan is currently Hong Kong Deputy to PRC’s Tenth National People’s Congress.


Founder of YWCA
Fok Hing-tong 霍慶棠 – In 1920, Fok, together with her sister Fok Shui-yue 霍絮如, and friends Wu So-ching 胡素貞 (principal of St. Paul's Girls' College) and Ng Bik-yuen 吳碧絃, founded the Hong Kong YWCA. The association, when established, had 81 founding members and 12 founding Board Members. Fok is married to Ma Ying-piu 馬應彪, the founder of Sincere Department Stores – noticeably the first department stores in Hong Kong owned by Chinese. She created a sensation in the city by becoming a woman storekeeper (at the cosmetic department) in her husband’s department store. Until that time, only men worked as storekeeper in Hong Kong. Her bolt deed had encouraged women in Hong Kong to enter that field.

Margaret Ho-tung (right, sitting down) posted with
husband Robert and his other wife Clara Cheung
Lin-kok (Clara is Margaret’s cousin) and Clara’s
son KMT General Robert Ho Shai-Lai 何世禮
and his wife Hesta Hung Ki-fun 洪奇芬.Benefactor of Hong Kong's First Dog's Home

Margaret Ho-tung, nee Maclean 麥秀英  – In 1923, Ho-tung, the Eurasian wife of Robert Ho-tung, made a donation to the Hong Kong Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for the purpose to build the first dog’s home in Hong Kong. The dog’s home, opened in June 1923, was located on Waterloo Road. The SPCA was founded on August 28, 1903 but remained inactive until re-established on June 24, 1921 where the 16th Governor Reginald Edward Stubbs accepted positions as President and Patron of the Society.

Police Woman Police Officer of Chinese Descent

Kimmy Koh 高建美 – In 1949, Koh, who came from Malaysia, was recruited as the first Women Sub-Inspector in the Hong Kong Police Force. She became an inspector in 1952 and retired in 1961 after having served 12 years in the force.


Woman Meteorologist
Elaine Koo Mu-pin, nee Hui 古許慕彬 – In 1975, Koo joined the Hong Kong Observatory and became the first woman Scientific Officer. She was promoted to Assistant Director in 1993.


Woman Court Interpreter, Hospital Matron of Chinese Origin
Lai A-mui 黎亞妹 (b. 1839 Xiqiaoshan, Nanhai - d. 1902 Hong Kong) - In the 1860s Lai worked as an interpreter at the High Court, the first woman to be hired for the job. Lai, an orphan raised by Chan Ayow, a devout Christian and widow of crooked Police Magistrate Daniel Richard Caldwell, studied at the Ting Wah Girls’ School and was well versed in English. She married Hong Kong’s first Chinese dentistry practitioner, Kwan Yuen-cheong 關元昌 and was the mother of Dr. Kwan Sun-yin 關心焉, the first graduate of the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese to practice in Hong Kong. She worked in the College and the Alice Memorial Hospital, wherein the College was housed, initially as an intepreter and later as the Matron. It is likely that she acquired her nursing skill from Dr. Patrick Manson, a co-founder of the College. When the first professionally trained matron, Helen Stevens, arrived at the hospital in 1891, she confirmed that the hospital already had a Chinese matron, by the name of Kwan Lai-si 關黎氏. This wasn’t her alias; the name can be best translated as Mrs. Kwan, nee Lai, which was a very common way a married woman was addressed at those days.

Beauty Queen Televised

Meg Lam Kin Ming 林建明 – In 1973, Lam took the title of Miss Beach Pageant 沙灘小姐選舉 organized by Rediffusion 麗的電視, and became the beauty queen of Hong Kong’s first televised beauty pageant. Lam moved on to become a popular TV talent and a movie actress. An outlandish celebrities, Lam made her starring film debut by shaving her head and appearing nude in the prostitute drama Bald-Headed Betty 社女 (1975).

Woman to Head the Oldest Medical School

Karen Lam Siu-Ling 林小玲 – In 2007, Lam was appointed head the Department of Medicine at University of Hong Kong and became the first woman to head Hong Kong’s oldest medical school founded in 1912. Two year earlier, she received, as the first woman at HKU, an endowed professorship. As chief of endocrinology at the Queen Mary Hospital, Lam pioneered structured training in endocrinology and diabetes for doctors in Hong Kong and the Mainland China. She also played a key role in setting standards for these specialties in Hong Kong. In 1994, she founded the KK Leung Diabetes Centre at the hospital -- the first center in Hong Kong to provide comprehensive diabetes care and patient education. She is internationally renowned for her outstanding achievements in applied biomedical research and, under her leadership, her research team at HKU has discovered several new hormones, which have opened up novel strategies for the prediction, prevention, and treatment of diabetes and obesity.

Steward of World Aeronautical Meteorology Organ

Sharon Lau 劉心怡 – In 2003, Lau, Senior Scientific Officer of the Hong Kong Observatory and previously the officer-in-charge of the Observatory's Airport Meteorological Office (AMO), was invited to serve on the Management Group of the Commission on Aeronautical Meteorology and became the first Hong Kong women meteorologist to hold a management position in one of the eight technical commissions under the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). She was also appointed co-chairperson of the TREND (Training, the Environment and New Developments) working group, one of the two open working groups under the Commission. In 1992, Lau was tasked with the planning of weather facilities for the new international airport at Chek Lap Kok. In the few years before and after the airport opening in 1998, her focus was on the development of the Observatory's windshear and turbulence alerting service and its improvement.

Woman Pastor

Lee Ching-chee 李清詞 (b.1932 Hong Kong - ) – In 1966, Lee was ordained by the Hong Kong Council of the Church of Christ in China (HKCCC) 中華基督教會香港區會 and became the first woman pastor in Hong Kong. She went to London in 1977 where she served as the Secretary for Mission Education in the Council for World Mission. In 1981, Lee returned to Hong Kong to assume the post of Associate General Secretary of the HKCCC and held that position until her retirement in 1998. Lee became a Christian while attending Ying Wa Girl's School; she would later taught in her alma mater and had served as its Chaplain and Supervisor.


Woman Legal Chief
Elsie Leung Oi-sie 梁愛詩 (b.1939 Hong Kong - ) – In 1997, Leung was appointed Secretary for Justice and became the first Chinese person as well as the first woman to be placed in the highest legal post in the government. She held the position until 2005. Leung qualified as a solicitor in 1968, specializing in divorce cases. She was the only lawyer appointed to the post not a Queen’s Counsel (or King’s Counsel) or a Senior Counsel (this doesn’t make her very special, only hugely unqualified). The title of Secretary for Justice was known as Attorney General in the colonial government era. Leung is a founder of pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong 民建聯.

HSBC Woman Tai-pan

Margaret Leung Ko May-yee 梁高美懿 (b.1952, Hong Kong - ) - In 2005, Leung became the first woman Group General Manager of HSBC, she also co-headed the commercial banking of the group. After having been with HSBC for 28 years, she moved up to head Hang Seng Bank, which is a HSBC company, in 2009 as its Vice-Chairman and CEO.

TV Actress

Lily Leung 梁舜燕 (b.1933- )– In 1957, Leung took the leading role in the TV drama series “A Blessed Family” 幸福的家庭, and became the first TV actress and acted in the first ever TV drama series produced locally. Not only that, the show was broadcast live! The TV station was Rediffusion 麗的映聲, Hong Kong first cable TV company that started broadcasting from May 29, 1957. Wireless TV broadcasting won’t appear until 10 years later.


Woman Bus Driver
Leung Wai-yu  – In 1989, Leung became the first woman bus driver, who broke into a male-dominated line of work. She joined Kowloon Motor Bus Ltd. (KMB) earlier in the same year, with 11 other women, as trainee in the Bus Captains Training School established in 1988. She retired at the age of 60 in 2008 with near-zero record in road accidents. KMB now has 484 female bus captains, accounting for 6 per cent of the total driving team.

Woman JP, Lawmaker; and Dame

Ellen Li 李曹秀群 (b. 1908 Shanghai - d. 2005 Hong Kong) – In 1948, Li was appointed a Justice of the Peace, the first ever woman JP since the institution of JP was created in Hong Kong in 1843. A women's rights activist and philanthropist, she was the founder of the Women's Club and the Hong Kong Council of Women, and maintained life-long associations with the YWCA and the Family Planning Association. She was the first woman member of the Legislative Council (1966-1974) and the first Hong Kong woman to have been created a CBE (1948). She married Li Shu-pui 李樹培, MD, the late Superintendent of the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital.

Florence Li, the first Anglican Church Priest,
and Ronald Hall, the Bishop who ordained her.

Woman Priest
Florence Li Tim-oi 李添嬡 (b. 1907 Hong Kong - d. 1992 Toronto) – In 1944, Li was ordained by Bishop Ronald Owen Hall 何明華 of the Anglican Communion and became the first women priest of the Anglican Church. The ordination was an emergency measure in response to the crisis among Anglican Christians in China caused by the Japanese invasion. In 1946 after the war, Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Francis Fisher, who assumed the post in 1945, laid an accusation against Hall for wrongly ordained a woman to priesthood. To protect Hall from the likelihood of being sacked and to end the controversy, Li resigned her license, though not her priestly orders. Twenty seven years later in 1971, Joyce Bennet and Jane Hwang Hsien-yuen became the first regularly ordained women priests. In conjunction with their ordination, Li was officially recognized as a priest in the diocese. In 2008, Li was nominated as a candidate to be conferred the tile of Saint.

Woman Judge

Helen Ann Lo 羅凱倫 (later Helen Griffiths) (b.1933 Hong Kong – d.1988 Hong Kong) – In 1986, Lo was appointed by 26th Governor Edward Youde a full time District Court Judge and became the first woman district court judge. Lo began practicing law in 1959 (referred to a the fourth woman to do so; Patricia Loseby was the first in c.1948) and was the first woman solicitor to establish her own law firm in Hong Kong – Helen A. Lo & Co. Before her appointment in 1986, she sat as a Deputy Judge in the District Court for six weeks in 1985. As a solicitor she specialized in Family Law and as a District Judge she sat on the Family Court Bench. Lo became interested in equitation in the 1960s where in 1969 she, with the help of Ronald Arculli 夏佳理 (former Chairman of the Hong Kong Jockey Club), established the Dragon Hall School of Equitation 龍騰閣騎術學校 , which is situated in Kwu Tung 古洞. The interest intensified in the 1970s where she obtained riding instructor qualifications from Britain, and in 1973, together with Tony Grimshaw (of Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club) and James Morin (of Lo Wu Saddle Club), she established the Hong Kong Horse Society, eventually to become the Hong Kong Equestrian Federation. Lo was the only woman and the only Asian listed by the Federation Equestrian International as an International Judge in all three disciplines – Dressage, Show Jumping and Cross Country. Helen used her maiden name in the professional circle, and her married name (she was married to John Griffiths) in the equestrian circle.

The Losebys was invited by Ho Chi Minh
to visit Vietnam in 1960. The woman
who sat between Ho and Francis Loseby
could have been Patricia.Woman Solicitor

Patricia J. Loseby (b. 1922 – d. 2001 London) – In c.1948, Loseby began her law practice in Hong Kong and became the first woman solicitor in the city. She was affiliated in the 1970s with the law firm Russ and Co., which was situated in the Baskerville House on Ice House Street. Her name was shown as a member of a 3-person panel of the Inland Revenue Board on September 27, 1988. She was a long-time member of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch. Pat Loseby was a sailing legend and for a while, as a child, lived with her parents at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club and today has a room at the club named after her. She served in the Hong Kong Auxiliary Nursing Service and was stationed at the La Salle Relief Hospital, housed inside the La Salle College, in 1941 at the outbreak of the battle of Hong Kong. As a child she was quite close to Ho Chi Minh who came to their house to see her father, Francis Loseby - also a solicitor. The elder Loseby met Ho in 1913 and served as the latter’s solicitor in the 1930s when Ho was detained by Hong Kong authorities between mid 1931 and early 1933. F. Loseby chaired a committee appointed by the Hong Kong Government to review the matter of child slavery in Hong Kong. Rosa, Pat Loseby’s mother, ran the SPCA animal’s home in Kowloon - its facilities, as described in this post, were donated by Margaret Ho-tung. A record showed that Rosa Loseby was a Justice of the Peace in 1967.


Crusader Against Child Labor
A.M. Pitts – In 1918, Pitts, a missionary of the Church Missionary Society 英國聖公會差會 who had been working in Hong Kong for seventeen years, delivered a speech to the Church of England Men's Society on the welfare of children in Hong Kong and became the first woman to attack the child labor problem in the colony. She was also the first woman to speak to the Society and to mark the event ladies were invited to attend. Pitts spoke on five issues relating to child labor in Hong Kong: (1), the employment of children to carry loads to the Peak; (2), the conditions of children working in factories; (3), the question of domestic servants; (4), the lack of school places for children of school age; and (5), the need to bring pressure to bear on parents and guardians to send children to school. She estimated that only one-fourth of the children of school age attended school. She then set out six concrete proposals to correct the situation: (1), the appointment of women inspectors for factories; (2), the framing of factory laws; (3), compulsory education, industrial and technical training for half the day; (4), establishment of free schools and provision of playgrounds where possible; (5), laws against selling children and the registration of servants; and (6), restricted immigration. In 1921, Pitts was invited to sit on the government appointed “Commission of Inquiry on Child Labor” chaired by Secretary for Chinese Affairs S.B.C. Ross. Also serving in the committee were Legislative Council member Chow Shouson 周壽臣, contractor and philanthropist Li Ping 李炳 and C.W. McKenny, the head of the Government Civil Hospital.

Canadian Senator of Asian Descent

Vivienne Poy, nee Lee 利德蕙 (b.1941 Hong Kong - ) – In 1998, Poy was appointed, by Canadian Prime Minister (1993-2003) Jean Chrétien, Senator for Toronto and became Canada’s first Asian senator. Poy is the daughter of Richard Charles Lee, a Hong Kong business executive, lawmaker and the head of the Freemasonry in Far East. Her grandfather, Lee Hysan, was known as the “King of Opium” and was gunned down in board daylight at the age of 49. Poy went to Canada in 1959 as a student. She founded the fashion house of Vivienne Poy Mode in 1981. In 1962, she married Neville G. Poy 伍衛權, the brother of Canadian Governor General Adrienne Clarkson 伍冰枝 who is also an immigrant from Hong Kong. Poy became the Chancellor of the University of Toronto in 2002.

October 17, 1922 photo of Alice Sibree (seated center) at the opening
of the Tsan Yuk Hospital. She was appointed a director of the hospital. Woman Doctor

Alice Deborah Sibree (b. 1876 Antananrivo, Madagascar – d. 1928 Hong Kong) – In 1904, Sibree was engaged as the doctor in charge of the Alice Memorial Maternity Hospital 雅麗氏紀念產科醫院 (AMMH), Hong Kong’s first maternity hospital (opened on June 7, 1904) and became the first woman medical doctor in Hong Kong. She was twenty-seven years old then. Daughter of Rev. Dr. James Sibree (1836-1929) - architect, missionary and naturalist – of London Missionary Society (LMS) in Madagascar, Alice Sibree studied at the London School of Medicine for Women and then went to work for LMS. It was under the appointment of LMS that she was engaged to the new Hong Kong hospital built by a donation from Ho Kai who was a son of a LMS pastor. The hospital was named after Ho’s wife Alice Walkden. Within the same year she arrived in Hong Kong, Sibree commenced the provision of formal training of midwives – a two-year course based on British curriculum. The student midwives had to complete the general nursing training before being admitted to this program. Three student midwives were recruited. They passed the first government examination for midwives held in 1906 and received the certificate of qualification. Examiners were doctors and one of them was Ho Kai who obtained a MMed from the University of Aberdeen. In 1905, the Government Maternity Hospital sent their midwives to AMMH for training. Since then, the local Chinese gradually accepted delivery of babies by Western method though women were still reluctant to have hospital confinement. As such, Sibree and her team of eight government midwives took their maternity services to the women's homes. In 1909, they took care of 1,381 domiciliary deliveries while there were only 235 hospital confinements. Sibree returned to England and resigned from LMS in 1909 claiming dissatisfaction with her role and conflict with her boss R.M. Gibson, the Medical Superintendent of the Alice Memorial and Affiliated Hospital. She subsequently returned to Hong Kong and undertook voluntary medical mission work, and later became the driving force behind the establishment of Tsan Yuk Hospital 贊育醫院 in 1922 which has since been the leading obstetric hospital in Hong Kong. She married C.C. Hickling, the manager of the Taikoo Sugar Refinery. Sibree died in Hong Kong in 1928.

1951 photo of Teo[1]Woman Barrister (updated October 12, 2014)

Teo Soon Kim 張舜琴 (b.1905 Singapore - ?) – On October 25, 1932, Teo’s admission to practice in Hong Kong was sanctioned by Chief Justice Joseph Kemp and became Hong Kong’s first woman barrister. Daughter of Malayan Chinese rubber baron and keen supporter of Sun Yat-sen’s republican movement in China, Teo Eng Hock 張永福 (1871 Guangdong - 1959 Hong Kong), Teo Soon Kim was born in Singapore and educated in England. She was admitted to the Inner Temple in May 1924 and was called to the Bar of England and Wales in June 1927, and became the third ever Malayan Chinese women to qualify as barrister in England. She married Chinese scholar and political commentator Lo Long-chi (Luo Longji) 羅隆基 (1896-1965) in England in 1928. Lo studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science. They returned to Singapore in 1928 and a year later she was admitted as Singapore’s first woman barrister (women were only allowed to practice law in Malaya beginning 1927). The couple moved to Shanghai where Lo taught at the Guanghua University 光華大學 (est. 1925- cld. 1951) and she was said to practice law there. Lo and Teo were divorced in 1931 and Teo came to Hong Kong. A year later she was allowed to practice in the colony. And, about sixteen years later in c.1948, Patricia J. Loseby was admitted as Hong Kong’s first woman solicitor.

[1] Correction: The photo is of Pu Xixiu 浦熙修, a notable journalist in China and a girlfriend of Lo Long-chi. Thank you, 水橫舟, for pointing out my mistake. (10/12/2014)

Tennis Medalist - Asian Games

Ling Tsui Yuen-yuen 徐婉圓 – In 1962, partnered with Ranjani Jayasuriya of Sri Lanka, Tsui won a silver medal in the Ladies' Double in the Asian Games in Indonesia and became the first Hong Konger Asian Games Medalist for Tennis. Ling, mother of current Hong Kong Davis Cup Captain, Derek Ling, has won seventeen local major Singles titles, nine Ladies' Doubles titles, and ten Mixed Doubles titles.

The young Tungs.
They were married in 1961.A1

Betty H.P. Tung 董趙洪娉 (b. 1937- ) – In 1997, Tung became Hong Kong’s First Lady when her husband Tung Chee-wah sworn in as the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong SAR on July 1, 1997. He stepped down on March 12, 2005 claiming health problems.

1950s photo of Teddy and Nina WangWoman Billionaire

Nina Wang Yu-sum, nee Kung 龔如心 (b. 1937 Shanghai – d. 2007 Hong Kong) – In 2006, Wang became the first Hong Kong woman to have made it on Forbes Billionaire List. Her net worth was estimated at US$4.2 billion.


Female Head of Dental Organs
Wong Tin-chun 黃殿春 – In 1989, Wong was elected the president of the Hong Kong Dental Association and became the first women head of the then 39 years old professional society. She went on to become the first woman President of the Hong Kong Society of Orthodontists in 1991, the first woman to be appointed to the Dental Council of Hong Kong 香港牙醫管理委員會, and the first woman to be elected chair of the Dental Council’s Preliminary Investigation Committee. She was the recipient of the FDI World Dental Federation Merit Award in 1998 and was conferred an Honorary Life Membership by the Hong Kong Dental Association in 2000. Wong is the current Finance Committee Chairman of the FDI World Dental Federation. Wong, an orthodontist, attended the University College Hospital Dental School in London.

- TO BE COMPLETED -