Sir Tsun-nin Chau (1893–1971) was born in Hong Kong on 22 October 1893, his family originating in Dongguan, Guangdong; his father Chau Siu-ki was an unofficial member of the Legislative Council and his cousin Sir Sik-nin Chau also became a member of both councils. The seventh son of his father, he was known as 'Seventh Brother' because his six elder brothers all died young. Educated at St Stephen's College, he went to Queen's College, Oxford in 1910 to read law, graduated in 1914 and was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, later taking a master's degree at Oxford. After a few months in practice he turned to the family's finance and insurance business, serving as general manager of the Safety Fire and the Kowloon Land and Mortgage companies and supervisor of the Yuen On Steamship Company, later chairing the Canton Trust Bank and sitting on the boards of the Yaumati Ferry, Hongkong Electric, Hong Kong Telephone and other firms. Appointed an unofficial Justice of the Peace in 1922 and a member of the Sanitary Board in 1929, he was named an unofficial member of the Legislative Council by Governor Peel in December 1931 and sworn in that month to fill the seat left by Sir Chow Shouson, the first man in Hong Kong's history to follow his father into that chamber, and became Senior Chinese Unofficial Member in January 1937 in succession to Dr Ts'o Seen-yu; he served briefly on the Executive Council in 1938, retired from the Legislative Council in December 1939 when Sir Man-kam Lo succeeded him, and received the CBE in 1938. After the Japanese occupation he was appointed deputy Secretary for Chinese Affairs by the temporary military government in 1945, returned to the Legislative Council when civil government resumed in May 1946, joined the Executive Council as Senior Chinese Unofficial Member, became Senior Unofficial Member of the Legislative Council in 1950, retired from that chamber in 1953 and stepped down from the Executive Council in 1959, when the Queen granted him the right to keep the title 'The Honourable' for life; he was knighted in 1956. He was also a permanent adviser to Tung Wah, a permanent director of Po Leung Kuk and an honorary adviser to the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, wrote the inscription on the Sun Yat-sen memorial in Tuen Mun's Sun Yat-sen Park, sat on the University of Hong Kong's court from 1931, and received an honorary doctorate in law from the university in 1961. The Canton Trust Bank, which he chaired, failed in the 1965 bank run that helped trigger that year's share-market crash. He died at the Sanatorium Hospital in Happy Valley on 27 January 1971, the first day of the Lunar New Year, aged 77, and was buried in the Aberdeen Chinese Permanent Cemetery.
Sir Tsun-nin Chau embodied the Chinese political elite spanning colonial Hong Kong's pre-war and post-war years: inheriting his father's seat and later leading both the Legislative and Executive Councils after the liberation, he bridged Chinese society and the colonial government while long supporting Tung Wah and Po Leung Kuk, helping to shape the territory's transition-era governance.
Achievements
- 1931 · Appointed an unofficial member of the Legislative Council, the first man in Hong Kong's history to follow his father into that chamber
- 1946 · Returned to the Legislative Council after the liberation and simultaneously joined the Executive Council
- 1961 · Received an honorary doctorate in law from the University of Hong Kong