George Kwok Bew

Early life George Kwok Bew was born circa January 1868 in Heung Shan (later Chung Shan, now Zhongshan), in Guangdong province, China. His father was Chap Hing, a local farmer and his mother was Fung Size, a homemaker. and partially owned Sydney's first fruits and vegetables wholesale store, Wing Sang and Co. (, also referred to as "Wing San"). and was also a partner of Australian banana importer Sang on Tiy (生安泰), a merger company formed by Wing Sang and two other fruit companies Wing On and Tiy Sang. Kwok was regarded as one of the most prominent fruit merchants then in Sydney

Kwok became an associate of Chinese reformist politician-in-exile Liang Qichao and initially leaned towards the reformist goal of establishing a constitutional monarchy in China. He was a founder of the Australian chapter of the Chinese Empire Reform Association in 1901. However, he switched his support to the republican revolutionary Sun Yat-sen, who also hailed from Heung Shan. In support of the republican cause, Kwok established a republican newspaper in Sydney in 1914, which circulated in Australia and across the Pacific and South East Asia. Kwok became the founding president of the Chinese Nationalist League of Sydney (Kuomintang) in 1916.

James, Philip and William left Australia in 1907 to found the Wing On Company, a department store modelled after Anthony Hordern & Sons, in Hong Kong. In 1918, George partnered with the three cousins to open a Wing On store in Shanghai, which became one of the "four great companies" that introduced the modern department store format to Shanghai. Two of George's partners at Wing Sang followed the same route, and founded Sincere and The Sun, two of the other "four great companies". George Kwok became the managing director of Wing On and steered its growth towards a conglomerate involved in retail, banking and manufacturing. Before moving to Shanghai, Kwok's children could not understand the Chinese language.