'The Churches and Higher Education in Hong Kong, 1887-1963'

Abstract

While many British colonies introduced compulsory state-funded education systems in the late nineteenth century, Hong Kong’s colonial government continued to maintain aided church schools well into the twentieth century and beyond, but when a university was proposed for the colony in 1907 the governor, Sir Frederick Lugard, made it clear that, unlike numerous other British colonial universities established in the nineteenth century which welcomed support from the Christian churches, Hong Kong’s university would be strictly secular, allowing no religious influences or interference. This was an unexpected policy considering the important role played by the London Missionary Society in establishing the Hong Kong College of Medicine in 1887, and the prominence of both the Catholic and Anglican churches in the training of teachers and clergy for evangelical activities in South China. This paper will examine the reasons for the promulgation of such an anti-church policy in a colony with a long history of state-aided primary and secondary schools. It will also consider why this policy ultimately failed and the increasingly important role played by the various Christian churches in higher education until the founding of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1963.