Elsie Tu

Elsie Tu (Hume; ; 2 June 1913 – 8 December 2015), known as Elsie Elliott in her earlier life, was an English-born Hong Kong social activist, elected member of the Urban Council of Hong Kong from 1963 to 1995, and member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1988 to 1995.

Tu was born into the working-class family of John and Florence Hume on 2 June 1913 in Newcastle upon Tyne, the second child of four.

Hume converted to Christianity in 1932 during her first year at university.

After attending Benwell Secondary Girls' School and Heaton Secondary School, she went on to study at Armstrong College, a forerunner of Newcastle University, graduating in 1937 with a Bachelor of Arts.

From 1937 to 1947 she was a schoolteacher in Halifax, where, during the Second World War, she was a Civil Defence volunteer.

In 1946 she married William Elliott, and went with him to China as a missionary called the Christian Missions in Many Lands in 1947 and stationed in Yifeng.

Hume was among the last group of missionaries moving from Nanchang to Hong Kong after the Communist Party of China took power in 1949 and expelled all foreign missionaries from the Mainland China.

She lived in an illegal apartment in a squatter community in Wong Tai Sin area, known as Kai Tak New Village.

She soon learned about corruption because squatters had to pay triad gangs protection money.

Shocked by the poverty and injustices there, and due to her sympathy to the situation of Hong Kong society, Elsie became disenchanted with her husband's rigid Protestant faith and the refusal of their church, the Plymouth Brethren, to become involved in social issues.

Born and raised in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, Tu moved to Hong Kong in 1951 following a period as a missionary in China.

She became known for her strong antipathy towards colonialism and corruption, as well as for her work for the underprivileged.

In 1954, she founded and worked in Mu Kuang English School for poor children in an old army tent at a squatter area near Kai Tak.

She started with 30 pupils in an old army tent.

For a year, she lived on little else but bread and water until employed at the Hong Kong Baptist College, teaching English, English Literature and French.

She also met her colleague, Andrew Tu Hsueh-kwei in the school, who became her husband 30 years later.

The Mu Kuang English School is now situated on Kung Lok Road in Kwun Tong, serving 1,300 children of Hong Kong's low-income families.

Elsie left the Plymouth Brethren when she stood up in the assembly in Hong Kong in 1955.

She returned to Hong Kong alone to carry on the education works.

She divorced her husband and lived, for a time, in a kitchen in a Kowloon Walled City tenement.

Becoming politically active, Elliott was elected for the first time to the Urban Council in 1963, a body dealing with local district matters such as public health, recreation, culture, food hygiene, hawking and markets.

Its membership was partially publicly elected and partially appointed.

It was also the only elected office in the colony at the time.

Brook Bernacchi's Reform Club was seeking a woman candidate and Elliott ran.

At that time, the Reform Club and the Civic Association, the two quasi-opposition parties in the Urban Council formed a join ticket for the four seats in the council to push for constitutional reform in the colony.

She took the main role in the 1966 Kowloon riots when she opposed the Star Ferry fare increase which later turned into riots and faced accusations of inciting the disorder.

She later left the club and ran as an independent in the re-election in 1967.

One of the prerequisites for becoming an Urban Councillor at that time was a knowledge of English, the only official language.

She fought for gay rights, better housing, welfare services, playgrounds, bus routes, hawker licences and innumerable other issues and her campaigning is credited with leading to the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in 1974.

In the run up to the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China and the midst of the Sino-British conflict on the 1994 Hong Kong electoral reform, Tu found favour with the Chinese Communist authorities, and took a seat on the Beijing-controlled Provisional Legislative Council, from December 1996 to June 1998, after losing both her seats in the Urban and Legislative Councils in 1995 to another prominent democrat Szeto Wah.

In post-1997 Hong Kong, although without a formal public role, Tu consistently supported the SAR government and policies including the controversial Basic Law Article 23 legislation.

She remained as the school principal until 2000.

Elliott was shocked by the injustices she perceived in Hong Kong when she first arrived.

However, her church did not permit social activism.

After she left the church, she felt like she was "starting [her] new life at the age of 43, with a mission on earth for human beings, and not mansion in heaven for [her]self."

She wrote to The Guardian, deploring the long working hours, low wages and primitive working conditions experienced by Chinese people in Hong Kong.

Her letter was quoted during debate in the UK Parliament.

A controversy ensued, resulting in labour reform in Hong Kong.

Elliott was also appalled to find child labour officially recognised and accepted in Hong Kong.

She died in Hong Kong on 8 December 2015, at the age of 102.