Then & Now | He ‘showed others how to understand what Hong Kong had experienced’: memories of prolific historian and civil servant James Hayes
- James Hayes balanced decades as an administrator in Hong Kong’s New Territories with professional-level scholarship of its history, languages and culture
- Enthusiastic and generous, his output was without equal. Above all, a fellow historian says, Hayes showed an ‘abiding affection for Hong Kong and its people’
James Hayes, the former senior government administrator whose wide-ranging scholarship over numerous aspects of Hong Kong history, culture and society – in particular his beloved New Territories – closely influenced generations of local historians, recently died in Sydney, Australia, aged 92.
Born in Scotland in 1930, Hayes first visited the colony briefly in 1953, as a young British Army officer en route to the Korean war. After national service there and in Gibraltar, and completion of a master’s degree in history, he joined the Colonial Administrative Service in 1956, and was posted to Hong Kong.
Early military connections continued with lengthy service in the Royal Hong Kong Regiment (The Volunteers); until recent years, Hayes frequently marched with the Regimental Association contingent in ANZAC Day ceremonies in Sydney.
After a period of Cantonese language training, Hayes commenced his involvement with the New Territories administration as District Officer South in 1957; a major early responsibility involved resettlement work for villagers displaced by the construction of Lantau’s Shek Pik Reservoir.
Hayes was almost the last of an eminent cadre of British scholar-administrators whose personal research interests in the languages, folk traditions, decorative arts, and traditional ways of life encountered in the places where they lived and worked were both enabled and cross-fertilised by their professional roles.
