韋玉

繁體中文

韋玉（韋寶珊，Sir Boshan Wei-Yuk，1849–1921）1849年在香港出生，祖籍廣東香山，父親韋光係有利銀行華人買辦。他幼年在家讀漢學十年，其後入讀中央書院（皇仁書院前身），1867年赴英國留學，先後就讀萊斯特斯東尼蓋爾學校及蘇格蘭大來學院，係近代首批留學西歐嘅華人學生之一。1872年返港後加入有利銀行，1882年升任其父生前擔任嘅華人買辦，至1910年離開，父子兩代服務該行合共六十三年。他1882年獲委任非官守太平紳士，1880年當選東華醫院總理、1887年任主席，又參與創立保良局並於1893年獲選永遠總理，1907年協助何啟爭取興建廣華醫院並任倡建總理。1894年鼠疫爆發時，他代政府向華人社會調解，勸服居民接受隔離與家居消毒，事後獲頒抗疫紀念金章。1896年他獲委任定例局（立法局）非官守議員，係開埠以來第四位華人議員；1914年3月接何啟出任首席非官守議員，至1917年10月退任，任內曾協調英方與新界鄉民，令新界於1898年順利納入香港版圖。他亦是團防局重要人物，1880年起任局紳、1891年促成團防局委員會成立，1920年獲委為團防局顧問；離開銀行後他經營進出口生意，並與何啟、區德、曹善允及周少岐合組啟德營業有限公司，在九龍灣填海建造啟德濱花園城市。1921年12月16日逝世，終年七十二歲。

English

Sir Boshan Wei-Yuk (1849–1921) was born in Hong Kong in 1849, his family from Heungshan in Guangdong; his father Wei Kwong was the Chinese comprador of the Mercantile Bank. Tutored in Chinese at home for ten years and then educated at the Central School, he went to Britain in 1867 to study at Stoneygate School in Leicester and Dollar Academy in Scotland, one of the first Chinese students educated in Western Europe. Returning in 1872 he joined the Mercantile Bank, rising in 1882 to the comprador post his father had held, and left only in 1910 — sixty-three years of service by father and son. Made an unofficial Justice of the Peace in 1882, he was elected a director of Tung Wah Hospital in 1880 and served as its chairman in 1887, helped found Po Leung Kuk and became a permanent director in 1893, and in 1907 worked with Ho Kai to secure the building of Kwong Wah Hospital as its founding director. During the 1894 plague outbreak he mediated with the Chinese community on the government's behalf and persuaded families to accept isolation and disinfection, for which he received the anti-plague medal. Appointed an unofficial member of the Legislative Council in 1896 — the fourth Chinese to sit there since the colony's founding — he succeeded Ho Kai as Senior Unofficial Member in March 1914 and retired in October 1917; in office he helped reconcile the British authorities and New Territories villagers so that the territory was absorbed smoothly in 1898. A leading figure in the District Watch Committee from 1880, he helped establish its committee in 1891 and was made its adviser in 1920; after leaving the bank he traded on his own account and joined Ho Kai, Au Tak, Tso Seen-wan and Chau Siu-ki in the Kai Tak Land Investment Company to build the Kai Tak Bund garden city on reclaimed land in Kowloon Bay. He died on 16 December 1921, aged 72.