Chau Kwan Lam
巢坤霖
(1888–1953)
Class of 1900s - Principal of the Evening School of Higher Chinese Studies
1900年代畢業 — 中學學校創辦敎育家
Chau Kwan Lam was an educator and diplomat. He taught English (1915–21) at Tsinghua College (today Tsinghua University) and promoted Chinese education in Hong Kong. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chau was in Australia, helping China in its war propaganda effort.
Chau studied at St. Paul’s College until the early 1900s.* In 1908, he continued his education in England, including at St. John’s College,† Durham University, and the University of London. Originally a theology student, Chau later focused on literature.
Chau was a passionate proponent of Chinese culture and liked Cantonese opera in particular. In collaboration with artist Ma Si Tsang, he once adapted a Shakespeare play for the medium. While in Hong Kong, he continued his educational work, founding a Mandarin-taught secondary school and promoting vernacular written Chinese; he once hosted the scholar Hu Shih in a 1935 seminar.
After the fall of Hong Kong, Chau fled to Guangxi and was sent to Sydney, where he gave frequent speeches and collaborated with the Chinese diaspora, thereby improving Sino-Australian ties. He assisted in repatriation after the war and returned to Hong Kong in 1949, where he was appointed principal of the Evening School of Higher Chinese Studies in 1951.
* We do not know exactly when Chau entered or left St. Paul’s; one conjecture places his departure at 1901 or 1903.
† We are unsure which St. John’s College Chau studied at. At the time (1908), St. John’s College could refer to a constituent college of Cambridge or Oxford; it was also the informal name for an Anglican theological college in London, and the Church of England also founded St. John’s College in Durham in 1909, where it became a constituent college of Durham University in 1919.