Discovered: The 1898 Newspaper Ad That Rewrites the Pre-History of a Hong Kong Elite School Have you ever looked at the founding date of a century-old institution and wondered, “Is that really where the story begins?” If you look up St. Stephen’s College (聖士提反書院) —the famous, sprawling heritage school in Stanley, Hong Kong—the history books and Wikipedia will tell you a clear story: it dates back to 1901 , when a group of prominent Chinese businessmen approached the Church Missionary Society (CMS) to create an elite school for their sons, officially opening its doors on Bonham Road in 1903 . But a newly unearthed artifact from the archives of the Hong Kong Telegraph (香港華字日報) dated January 13, 1898 , has just thrown a fascinating wrench into that timeline. It turns out, the "St. Stephen's" educational brand was alive, running, and teaching the masses long before the elite college ever laid its first brick. The Artifact: A Voice from 1898 While digging through digital a...