Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), born Sun Wen in Cuiheng village, Xiangshan county, Guangdong, went to Hawaii at twelve for a Western education; returning in 1883 he entered the Diocesan Home (forerunner of Diocesan Boys' School) in Hong Kong, transferred to the Central School (later Queen's College) in April 1884 and was baptised by the American Congregational missionary Charles Hager on 4 May 1884. When the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, backed by Ho Kai and others and attached to the Alice Memorial Hospital, opened in October 1887 he was in its first intake, graduating with distinction on 21 July 1892 together with Kong Ying-wat — the college's first graduates and Hong Kong's first locally trained Chinese doctors. As a student he debated politics and attacked the Qing court with Chan Siu-bak, Yau Lit and Yeung Hok-ling, a group mockingly called the 'Four Bandits' who nevertheless became the core of his later revolutionary movement. In November 1894 he founded the Revive China Society (Xingzhonghui) in Honolulu; in 1895 its Hong Kong headquarters opened, fronted by the 'Kon Hang Hong' shop on Staunton Street, with Yeung Ku-wan as president and Sun as secretary. The Guangzhou uprising of 26 October 1895 failed, Luk Ho-tung and others were executed, and under Qing pressure Hong Kong barred both leaders from entering for five years. Kidnapped by the Qing legation in London in 1896 and freed through James Cantlie's intervention, he became internationally known. He directed the Huizhou uprising in 1900 and founded the Chinese United League in Tokyo in 1905 as its premier, launching a series of uprisings before the Wuchang revolt of 10 October 1911 succeeded. Sworn in as Provisional President of the Republic of China in Nanjing on 1 January 1912, he stepped down for Yuan Shikai that April; after the second revolution and the constitutional protection movement he reorganised the party as the Kuomintang in 1919. On 20 February 1923 he returned to his alma mater and, addressing an audience in English in the Great Hall (now Loke Yew Hall) of the University of Hong Kong under the title 'Why I Became a Revolutionist?', said that Hong Kong and the university were his intellectual birthplace and that his revolutionary thinking came entirely from Hong Kong. He founded the Whampoa Military Academy in 1924 and died in Beijing on 12 March 1925, aged 58. After his death Xiangshan county was renamed Zhongshan in his memory, and he was interred in the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing in 1929.
Sun Yat-sen trained in Western medicine in Hong Kong and formed his revolutionary ideas there, going on to found the Revive China Society and the Chinese United League and to lead the 1911 revolution that ended imperial rule. As Provisional President of the Republic of China in 1912 he stood at the founding of modern China. Hong Kong served as an early base for his study, political circles and uprising planning, and he later called the city the birthplace of his thinking during his 1923 address at the University of Hong Kong. He died in Beijing in 1925 and was laid to rest in Nanjing in 1929.
Achievements
- 1892 · Graduated top of the first class of the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese
- 1894 · Founded the Revive China Society in Honolulu
- 1912 · Was sworn in as Provisional President of the Republic of China in Nanjing