346
HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
in 1887 the Hong Kong College of Medicine was founded, the prime movers in this enterprise being Dr. Patrick Manson and Dr. James Cantlie. One of the first students to graduate from the College, in 1892, was Sun Yat-sen, later to become the founder of the Chinese Republic.
In 1908 the College expanded into the University of Hong Kong. This development was made possible by the munificence of a Parsee citizen, Sir Hormusjee Mody, who presented the entire cost of the new University's main build- ings. With Government support, and the aid of subsequent benefactors, the University steadily developed traditions suited to its unique position as an English-speaking Univer- sity in surroundings overwhelmingly Chinese. Its academic standards were high, particularly in medicine, and it quickly attracted students of many nationalities, from South and South-East Asia as well as from Hong Kong.
The area available on Hong Kong Island for urban building was originally no more than a narrow strip of comparatively level ground along the foreshore. The original waterfront of Victoria ran, with a moderate foreshore, approximately along the line of Queen's Road. Hillside construction began in Stanley Street and Wellington Street, once a fashionable neighbourhood. As the nineteenth century proceeded, the tiers of houses rose gradually up the sides of the rock, fashion rising as well.
Reclamation of land from the sea began in the Colony's earliest days. By 1851 the waterfront had reached what is today Des Voeux Road Central, and was thereafter extended, in the face of much opposition from the principal commercial houses with foreshore sites, till it reached Connaught Road Central in 1904. This expansion, however, failed to keep pace with the increasing population. By 1870 the central part of Victoria, chiefly occupied by Chinese, was seriously overcrowded and insanitary. This was one of the factors that led the European community to climb even higher and develop the summits of the Peak as a residential area, a
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