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HISTORY

initial ill-organized armed opposition, but Sir Henry Blake based the administration on the maintenance of Chinese law and custom, in co-operation with village committees and headmen, and by extensive visits to the villages to explain his policy in person he was able to build up confidence. Steps were taken to improve economic conditions and check widespread malaria, so that the population of the New Territories has gradually increased from about 100,000 to nearly half a million as shown by the 1961 Census.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLONY UP TO 1941

The history of Hong Kong is one of steady expansion in trade and population, and of consequent material and social improve- ments. The old traditional practice of European and Chinese com- munities living apart continued in Hong Kong and was accepted. Each pursued his own way of life largely independent of the other. Until the Chinese had more opportunities for western education there could be little Chinese participation in government, western commerce or the professions. There have been, however, Chinese members of the Legislative Council since 1880 (when Ng Choy, who was the first Chinese to be called to the English bar, was appointed) and of the Executive Council since 1926.

In education, the first grants from public funds were those given to the Chinese vernacular schools in 1847 and administered by an education committee. The earliest schools were founded by missionary bodies, who have received grants or subsidies since 1873 and have conducted their schools mainly on western lines. A demand for higher education and professional training followed and in 1887 the College of Medicine for the Chinese was founded by Dr Patrick Manson, Dr James Cantlie and Dr Ho Kai, with the assistance of the London Missionary Society. One of its first graduates was Sun Yat-sen, later to become the founder of the Chinese Republic.

Undoubtedly the main educational advance was the founding in 1911 of the University of Hong Kong, which took over the work of the Hong Kong College of Medicine and the Technical Institute as the basis of its faculties of medicine and engineering. The university was made possible by the enthusiasm of Sir Frederick Lugard, the Governor, and the generosity of Sir Hormusjee Mody