Sir William Peel (27 February 1875 – 24 February 1945) was a British colonial official, born in Hexham, England, and educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he took a mathematical honours degree in 1896. He entered the Malayan colonial service in 1897 and served there for many years before becoming the 18th Governor of Hong Kong on 9 May 1930, holding office until 17 May 1935, when he was succeeded by Andrew Caldecott. He arrived as the Great Depression struck: when the international silver market collapsed in 1931, the silver-standard Hong Kong dollar depreciated sharply, the entrepôt trade and export industries shrank and unemployment rose. The government curtailed spending, slowed public works and reviewed civil-service pay while keeping basic services running. Peel pressed on with public works including Cheung Chau Hospital, the Kowloon reception reservoir and Aberdeen Reservoir, and the Shing Mun (later Jubilee) Reservoir, begun in the early 1930s and completed in 1937; during his term the telephone system was gradually automated and a regular air service between China and Hong Kong began. In 1933 cross-harbour vehicular ferries were introduced and franchises were granted to Kowloon Motor Bus and China Motor Bus. He also tackled social questions, phasing out licensed brothels in the 1930s while opium sales remained regulated, and in 1933–1934 he built a Governor's retreat at Fanling. He also had to manage budget deficits, taxation and civil-service pay amid the slump, as well as water, roads and rural transport in the New Territories. He left Hong Kong in 1935 and died in February 1945. Peel Rise on the Peak is named after him.
Peel steered Hong Kong through the early-1930s depression with retrenchment and limited public works, and the reservoirs, roads and sanitary projects of his term laid part of the groundwork for later municipal development. His handling of deficits and civil-service pay during the slump also shaped the government's subsequent austerity.
Achievements
- 1930 · Became the 18th Governor of Hong Kong in May
- 1931 · With the collapse of the international silver market and a sharply depreciated Hong Kong dollar, imposed spending cuts
- 1934 · The Governor's retreat at Fanling was completed