Imperial Graduates: Mapping Hong Kong’s Elites’ Networks across the British Empire, 1862-1941
Ryan Iu‘s project investigates the Hong Kong Chinese and Eurasian elite in a local, transregional, and intra-imperial context. These were the alumni of either the Government Central School (est. 1862) or the Diocesan Boys’ School (est. 1869). Through colonial education, they secured a pathway to elite status, and an access to an established ‘old boys’ network’ and the political/ commercial opportunities to expand into Britain and across the Empire.
In time, these local elites formed transpacific, maritime, and intra-imperial connections and significantly causing the origin of internationalism in early Hong Kong under colonial rule.
