Sir George William Des Voeux (22 September 1834 – 15 December 1909) was a British colonial administrator and a GCMG. He served in British Guiana and Trinidad before becoming Administrator of Saint Lucia from 1869 to 1878; he was Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner for the Western Pacific from 1880, then Governor of Newfoundland from 1886 to 1887, and arrived in Hong Kong in October 1887 as the colony's tenth Governor. In 1888 the revised Letters Patent came into effect, providing that in making laws the Governor must not only seek the advice of the Legislative Council but also obtain its consent, writing the legislature's check on the executive into Hong Kong's constitutional documents and marking an important step in its parliamentary evolution. In May the same year the Peak Tram opened; a concession first petitioned for by the businessman Alexander Findlay Smith in 1881 and authorised by legislation in 1883, this funicular railway between Garden Road in Central and Victoria Peak was the first system of its kind in Asia, was inaugurated by the Governor and opened to the public the next day, reshaping housing and transport on the Peak. In November he issued the European District Reservation Ordinance, setting aside certain areas in which Chinese residents were not permitted to live, a measure reflecting the racial segregation of colonial rule. In 1890 verbatim records of Legislative Council proceedings first appeared in the Hong Kong Hansard, making procedure more transparent; Chinese unofficial members had sat in the chamber since the appointment of Wu Tingfang in 1880, and their participation grew during his term. Population and trade grew steadily and civic works kept pace. He left office in May 1891, the last post of his colonial career, and in 1903 published his memoir My Colonial Service; he died in 1909. Des Voeux Road Central and Des Voeux Road West are named after him, and the area later became a commercial and financial hub of Hong Kong.
The 1888 revision of the Letters Patent turned the Legislative Council from an advisory body into a necessary consenting party to legislation, a key step in the evolution of Hong Kong's parliamentary system; the opening of the Peak Tram and the development of the Des Voeux Road area reshaped transport and commerce on Hong Kong Island, while the reservation ordinance left a mark of colonial segregation.
Achievements
- 1888 · The revised Letters Patent took effect, requiring the Governor to obtain the Legislative Council's consent in making laws
- 1888 · The Peak Tram opened, the first funicular railway of its kind in Asia
- 1888 · Issued the European District Reservation Ordinance, setting aside areas where Chinese residents could not live
- 1891 · Left office at the end of his term; Des Voeux Road Central was named after him