First Chinese graduate from any European university and first western-educated Chinese doctor

1

On the 4th of January 1847, three Chinese lads with few belongings left Canton (Guangzhou) with headmaster Samuel Robbins Brown aboard the schooner Huntress bound for New York to study in the US. One returned home sick; one became a famous educator; and one was China's first Western doctor.

They were all from Hsiang-shan's Kwangtung (Xiangshan's Guantang), today's Zhuhai, and had been among the first Chinese students to study at Morrison, a US missionary school in Macao and then Hong Kong.

Yung Wing (Rong Hong) (1828-1912) from Nanping, Zhuhai was the youngest. He would graduate from Yale College (University) and become known as Forefather of Chinese Overseas Students for having initiated the Chinese Educational Mission (CEM). The eldest was Wong Hsing (Huang Sheng), who returned to China because of ill health.

The third was Wong Fun (Huang Kuan), who went on to Scotland to enter the University of Edinburgh and become the first Chinese higher-education graduate in Europe.

2

Wong Fun (1828-78) was born in today's Dong'an Village of Tangjiawan Town. Unable to afford other schooling, he went to Macao at age 12 and studied at the Robert Morrison Protestant school that had been established and was run by Brown.

Samuel Robbins Brown [File photo]

The school moved to Hong Kong then. In 1847, his wife's ill health compelled Samuel Robins Brown to return to the US. Before he left, he invited volunteers from among his students to go with him. Wong Fun, Yung Wing, and Wong Hsing availed themselves of this opportunity.

Wong Fun in his youth [File photo]

From New York the three traveled north to the Monson Academy in Monson -- Brown's hometown east of Springfield in central Massachusetts. Two years later, Yung Wing and Wong Fun graduated from the academy. While Yung Wing went on to Yale, Wong Fun received financial aid from the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society (EMMS), departed for Scotland in 1850, and entered the University of Edinburgh.

Monson Academy [File photo]

3

The University of Edinburgh was founded in 1583 under a charter granted in 1582 by King James VI. Its other distinguished alumni include evolutionist Charles Darwin, physicist James Clerk Maxwell, novelist Arthur Conan Doyle, UK Prime Minister Henry John Temple Palmerston, and philosopher Bertrand Russell.

Wong initially registered as a student in literature, signing his name as "Wong Afun" on Nov 4, 1850 when he matriculated. In his second year, however, he transferred to medicine, performed well, and was awarded prizes. Upon graduation, he remained at the school hospital for internship and doctorate programs in anatomy and pathology. He earned his medical doctorate in his fifth year in Scotland, becoming the first Chinese to obtain a doctorate in the UK.

Dr Wong Fun (Wong Cheuk Hing, Huang Kuan) (1829-1878) [File photo]

4

Local newspapers showed great interest in the unprecedented Chinese doctor. The Witness reported on Aug 4, 1855 on the doctoral commencement ceremony at Edinburgh and released the title of Wong's essay -- "On Functional Disorders of the Stomach." The Scotsman newspaper also mentioned Wong Fun as one of the doctorate grads.

In 1857, Dr Wong gave up a comfortable life in the UK and returned first to Hong Kong and the next year to open a dispensary in Canton.

He worked in the London Mission Hospital in Canton and a year later entered Canton Missionary Hospital (惠爱医馆) founded by British medical missionary Benjamin Hobson.

Western medicine was yet unknown to Chinese people. Wong Fun served as a doctor and instructor and, meanwhile constructed the hospital. He cultivated four Chinese Western medics and added 80 sickbeds within two years, making Canton Hospital the first Western medicine facility headed by Chinese doctors with more than 26,000 outpatients treated annually.

Dr Wong conducted an embryotomy at the hospital in 1860 -- the first surgery of its kind in China. Yung Wing remembered him as "one of the ablest surgeons east of the Cape of Good Hope."

The Chinese physician won fame all over the country and was taken into the service of Li Hung-chang (Li Hongzhang), a noted politician, general, and diplomat of the late Qing (1636–1912). However, Dr Wong showed little interest in serving high-ranking officials. He resigned and went home half a year later. He was then employed by Canton Customs as the only Chinese among 17 doctors, which was not what he wanted either.

5

Dr Wong's ambition was to render service to his compatriots by introducing Western medicine. To develop China medically, he had to train numerous professionals.

He dedicated his efforts toward medical treatment and education after quitting the job with Canton Customs. At that time, American medical missionary John Glasgow Kerr took over the Ophthalmic Hospital, Canton Hospital, run by Yale-educated Dr Peter Parker, and began to enroll western medicine students. Dr Wong Fun accepted an invitation to teach there. 

Illustration by Yaz Serrano

Canton Medical School, which evolved into Lingnan University Medical College, opened at the Canton Hospital Pok Tsai (博济医院) (later Canton Hospital) in 1866 under the guidance of Dr Wong, who served as deputy chief. It was the first missionary medical school to train western doctors in China and gave birth to today's Sun Yat-sen University Medical Science School. Dr Wong taught anatomy, physiology, and surgery. He took the post of hospital acting director when John Glasgow Kerr, who came from Ohio, left China for the US in 1867.

After that, Dr Wong stayed on for more than 10 years. He translated many medical textbooks, expanded the laboratory, founded a specimen showroom, and set up a three-year elementary theoretical curriculum plus two-year clinic internship.

He turned out the first generation of western doctors in China and promoted western medicine in the country.

Dr Wong Fun died on Oct 12, 1878 due to an intensively severe carbuncle (cluster of boils) on the back of his neck.

As recalled by Yung Wing in his book, My Life in China & America, Wong's contributions to medical service in China "was highly respected and honored by Chinese and foreigners for his Christian character and the purity of his life."

6

Principal Timothy O' Shea of Edinburgh and four other administrators and professors came to Zhuhai on March 17, 2007 to present the city with Wong Fun's hometown transcripts of his examination results and a 68-page graduation research paper handwritten in English by Wong. 

Research paper by Wong Fun [Courtesy era.lib.ed.ac.uk]

The Zhuhai municipal government presented a bronze statue of Wong Fun to the University of Edinburgh in September 2007 in commemorating the 152th anniversary of the graduation of Wong Fun.

Statue of Wong Fun donated by the City of Zhuhai stands on the grounds of the Confucius Institute for Scotland at the University of Edinburgh. [Photo courtesy geograph.org.uk]

Learning that a Chinese Overseas Students Museum was under construction in Nanping Town of Zhuhai and expected to open in 2020, Principal O' Shea wrote in his inscription: "We're very proud of our connections with your region."

Plaque honoring Dr Wong Fun [Photo courtesy geograph.org.uk]

The philatelist owner of Transcamster Bog, two non-contiguous foot-square plots in Caithness, Scotland, issued a stamp commemorating Dr Wong Fun (Huang Kuan) on Jan 22, 2017, the Sunday before Chinese New Year.