Peter Tsui Yan Sau (1889–1980) founded both Wah Yan College Hong Kong and Wah Yan College Kowloon. A short history published by the Ma Ying Library of Wah Yan College Hong Kong in January 1997 records that his ancestral home was Wuhua in Guangdong, that his grandfather was an elder of a Christian church and his father a teacher, and that he came to Hong Kong as a child, attended St Joseph's College and became a Catholic. After graduating he taught at a secondary school in Meixian, Guangdong, for four years before returning to teach at his alma mater. In 1919 Tsui founded Wah Yan College on his own, later inviting his former colleague Lam Hoi-lan to join him. The school's results were strong enough for the Education Department to approve it as a government-aided Chinese-run private school; in 1925 he opened a Kowloon branch, and the two schools together had about 1,200 students, then the largest number in Hong Kong. Coming from teaching himself, Tsui believed teachers needed satisfactory pay and security to devote themselves fully to education. Wah Yan therefore paid its teachers one-third more than government schools and awarded an annual increment of 1.6%. The school history records that this prompted a major reform of the government teaching service's salary structure, after which government teachers were paid substantially more than those at Wah Yan. Tsui regarded a school as the common property of all its staff and concluded that a privately run school could not realise his highest ideal, so at the height of his career he handed Wah Yan to the Jesuits for the welfare of its teachers and students. After retiring he went into the rubber business in North Borneo with considerable success, having settled in Fanling in the New Territories with a house and farmland as early as the 1920s. His son Tsui Ka-cheung was appointed Hong Kong's first Chinese administrative officer in 1964.
Achievements
- 1919 · Founded Wah Yan College Hong Kong
- 1925 · Opened the Kowloon branch, with about 1,200 students across the two schools