Oswald Cheung, 81; A Top British Attorney in Colonial Hong Kong
Sir Oswald Cheung, 81, one of Hong Kong’s longest-serving lawyers and a prominent political figure, died Wednesday in a hospital there while undergoing treatment after being badly burned at his home in an accidental fire in September.
In 1965, he became the first Chinese ever to be appointed a top attorney, known as a queen’s counsel in the British system. He was a member of Hong Kong’s legislature from 1970 to 1981 and served on the Executive Council, the city’s cabinet, from 1974 to 1986.
Born in Hong Kong in 1922, Cheung studied math and chemistry at the University of Hong Kong. During World War II, he monitored Japanese activity in southern China for the British Liaison Office.
After the war, he attended Oxford University on a scholarship. He became a lawyer in London in 1951, and returned to Hong Kong a year later.
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