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 archives of late-19th-century Hong Kong newspapers, an unexpected school announcement caught my eye. Nestled right next to an advertisement for St. Paul’s College was this notice:
聖英士提文義學反館啟 (Reopening Notice of St. Stephen's Charity School)
“Led by Headmaster Chiu Tsz-tsuen, the English Charity School remains at Tai Tat Dei New Street. We will officially reopen for the new term on the 17th day of the first lunar month of the Wuxu Year...”
At first glance, it looks like a typical private evening tutorial class—the kind that boomed in colonial Hong Kong as locals rushed to learn "the language of the rulers" to land lucrative jobs in foreign trading houses (hongs).
But it’s the very last line of the advertisement that changes everything:
✍️ 「總理人班、牧師 謹啟」 (Respectfully announced by the Board of Directors and the Church Pastor)
What Does This Mean? (And Why It Matters)
For years, it was easy to assume that any "St. Stephen's" school listed before 1901 was just a private tutor cleverly "borrowing" the name of the well-known St. Stephen’s Anglican Church to sound authentic.
The presence of the word 「牧師」 (Pastor) completely obliterates that theory. This wasn't a rogue commercial night school. This was an official, institutional missionary outreach.
Here is how this discovery expands our understanding of Hong Kong's educational history:
1. Grassroots Missions Came First
Before St. Stephen’s became the prestigious, elite boarding school of choice for the sons of wealthy Chinese compradores in 1903, it existed as a grassroots evening charity school (義學). Located in the bustling, working-class heart of Tai Tat Dei (大笪地) in the Western District, it served the street-level community, offering free or low-cost English literacy to shopkeepers, laborers, and clerks.
2. The Institutional Leap of 1901
So, why does Wikipedia say the school started in 1901? Because in 1901, the nature of the school shifted entirely. Led by elites like Sir Kai Ho Kai, the Chinese upper class wanted a school modeled after elite British public schools (like Eton or Harrow). The CMS didn't start a new name from scratch; they took their existing grassroots "St. Stephen's" educational mission and elevated it into a high-end, full-time secondary college.
3. A Window into Colonial Social Climbing
The ad from January 1898 was written in the twilight of the Dingyou year, just weeks before the historic Wuxu Year (the year of China's famous Hundred Days' Reform). It captures a society in rapid transition. Even at the grassroots level in Tai Tat Dei, ordinary Hong Kongers recognized that Western education and English literacy were the ultimate golden tickets to social mobility.
History is Never Truly Settled
This 1898 clipping reminds us that history isn't just a straight line of official plaques and grand openings. Behind every elite institution we know today lies a messy, vibrant, and fascinating pre-history of grassroots community work. Three years before the "official" blueprints of St. Stephen's College were drawn, a dedicated headmaster named Chiu Tsz-tsuen and an unnamed Anglican pastor were already changing lives under the flickering gas lamps of Tai Tat Dei.

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