Yeung Ku Wan
楊衢雲
(1861–1901)
Class of 1881 - Chinese Revolutionary of the late Qing Dynasty
1881屆畢業 — 中國近代革命家
Yeung Ku Wan graduated from St. Paul’s College in 1881. He co-founded the Foo Yan Man Ser (Furen Literary Society) in 1890 and later the Revive China Society in Hong Kong in 1895 with Sun Yat-sen. The society planned the First Guangzhou Uprising the same year, but it failed due to leaked plans. Forced out of Hong Kong, Yeung spent the following years founding global branches of the society. He plotted the Huizhou Uprising in 1900, but without success. Yeung remained in Hong Kong until his 1901 assassination by a Qing agent.
Embittered by China’s repeated defeats throughout the nineteenth century, Yeung believed monarchy itself to be the barrier to China’s rejuvenation — a significantly more radical stance compared to his reformist contemporaries in the 1880s. Well-read in western treatises, Yeung led the Foo Yan Man Ser, giving frequent speeches. He met Sun Yat-sen in 1891, and the two immediately became lifelong friends.
Yeung’s death came as a shock to the Revive China Society, profoundly impacting Sun, who vowed to carry on his will of overthrowing the monarchy and establishing a republic. Yeung was buried in the Hong Kong Cemetery in Happy Valley under a nameless grave, though the government has since marked its location in commemoration of his revolutionary contributions.