Sir Oswald Victor Cheung (1922–2003) was born in Hong Kong on 22 January 1922, son of the prominent gentleman Cheung U-pui and of Elizabeth Ellis, daughter of Sir Ellis Kadoorie. Educated at Diocesan Boys' School and then at the University of Hong Kong reading mathematics and chemistry from 1938 to 1941, he moved during the Second World War to Macau and Kwangchowan, helped the British military monitor Japanese activity in South China and in 1942 became a British liaison officer in India. Soon after Hong Kong's liberation in 1946 he acted briefly as headmaster of Diocesan Boys' School; he won a scholarship to Oxford in 1947–1949 and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, beginning practice in Hong Kong in 1951 and taking silk in 1965 as the colony's first Chinese Queen's Counsel. Honorary secretary of the Hong Kong Bar Association in 1952 and its chairman in 1966, he became the mentor of many of the city's leading lawyers and was known as the 'godfather of the Hong Kong legal profession', his name being carried on today by the barristers' chambers founded under it. Appointed to the Legislative Council in 1970 and to the Executive Council in 1974, he was Senior Unofficial Member of the Legislative Council from 1978 to 1981, succeeding Sir Sze-yuen Chung and followed by Sir Roger Lobo, and remained in the councils until 1986. He was also a member of the Universities and Polytechnic Grants Committee and the first Chinese chairman of the Hong Kong Jockey Club; honoured as early as 1972, he was a bencher of Lincoln's Inn from 1987 to 2003 and was knighted in 1987. In September 2003 a match set light to his silk pyjamas while he smoked a cigar at his Happy Valley home; after skin grafts he died of fungal complications at Queen Mary Hospital on 10 December 2003, aged 81. Caritas Oswald Cheung International House in Tin Wan and the Sir Oswald Cheung Memorial Fund are named after him.
Cheung was the first ethnic Chinese Queen's Counsel in Hong Kong and served in both the Legislative and Executive Councils, as well as chairing the Bar Association. He mentored many leading local lawyers and was known as the doyen of the Hong Kong bar.
Achievements
- 1965 · Became the first ethnic Chinese Queen's Counsel in Hong Kong.
- 1978 · Became Senior Unofficial Member of the Legislative Council, succeeding Sir Sze-yuen Chung.
- 1987 · Was knighted.