Lydia Selina Dunn, Baroness Dunn, was born in Hong Kong on 29 February 1940, of Panyu, Guangdong descent; her father was a tea merchant. After living briefly in Shanghai, her family fled to Hong Kong in 1948. She attended St Paul's School, then studied in Oakland, California, at Holy Names College and the University of California, Berkeley, taking a BSc. Joining the Swire group in 1964, she began in the purchasing department of Swire Trading dealing in textiles and garments, rose to export manager and helped found Swire Trading (Taiwan). Active in public life from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, she was appointed to the Legislative Council by Governor MacLehose in 1976 and to the Executive Council by Governor Youde in 1982, succeeded Sir Roger Lobo as Senior Unofficial Member of LegCo in 1985 and served as Senior Unofficial Member of ExCo from 1988 to 1995, the first Chinese woman to lead the government's highest advisory body. She took a close interest in Hong Kong's future, met Deng Xiaoping in Beijing with Chung Sze-yuen and Lee Quo-wei, travelled repeatedly to London to lobby, and at a 1989 hearing on British nationality law criticised the British government, breaking down in tears, then pressed for the right of abode with Allen Lee. Created a DBE in 1989, she was the first Chinese woman to receive a British knighthood, and in 1990 she was made a life peer, the first ethnic Chinese to take a seat in the House of Lords. She retired in 1995, moving to Britain the next year; in 2010 she and four other peers gave up their seats to keep their non-domiciled tax status, drawing criticism. Outside politics she chaired the Hong Kong Trade Development Council from 1983 to 1991, promoting the Convention and Exhibition Centre, and was vice-chairman of HSBC Holdings from 1992 to 2008 and a director of Cathay Pacific and Swire.
Lydia Dunn held the highest unofficial offices in the colonial Executive and Legislative Councils and, through the Trade Development Council and her lobbying on Hong Kong's future, acted as a key bridge between the Hong Kong government and London in the 1980s. Her decision to give up her House of Lords seat reflected the choices over identity and tax facing Hong Kong elites around the handover.
Achievements
- 1983 · Became chairman of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, promoting the building of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.
- 1989 · Was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the first Chinese woman to receive a British knighthood.
- 1990 · Was made a life peer as Baroness Dunn, the first ethnic Chinese to sit in the House of Lords.