Hilton Cheong-Leen

Hilton Cheong-Leen, (; 6 August 1922 – 4 January 2022) was a Guyana-born Hong Kong politician and businessman. He is the longest uninterrupted serving elected officeholder in Hong Kong history as an elected member of the Urban Council of Hong Kong for 34 years from 1957 to 1991. He was also the first Chinese chairman of the council from 1981 to 1986. He had been a long-time chairman of the Hong Kong Civic Association, one of the two quasi-opposition political groups in the post-war Urban Council. From 1973 to 1979, he was appointed unofficial member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. From 1985 to 1988, he was again among the first elected members of the Legislative Council through Urban Council constituency in the first Legislative Council election in 1985.

Early life and business career Cheong-Leen was born in Georgetown, British Guiana, on 6 August 1922 to a third-generation Chinese mother Elvira Cheong-Leen and father Edward Cheong-Leen who came through Hong Kong from China to join an uncle in Guyana. He had worked in a law firm, an import and export company and as a banker after school.

After the fall of Hong Kong, he moved from Japanese-occupied Hong Kong to unoccupied territory in China, living with his family in Guilin where he worked for the American consulate, and also Kunming, finally returning to Hong Kong after the war. He was a journalist for a period of time, having been the Hong Kong correspondent the BBC. He was offered a job with the South China Morning Post but he followed his family's wish to go into commerce and set up his own import and export firm H. Cheong-Leen & Co. in 1945, importing gifts, premiums and watches.

As a publisher, he also joined the Junior Chamber in 1953 and represented the chamber in the international conference of the Junior Chamber in San Francisco.

Early political career At the time the Urban Council elections, the only direct elections in the colony at the time, were dominated by Brook Bernacchi's Reform Club of Hong Kong, Cheong-Leen founded the Hong Kong Civic Association in 1954 with Roger Lobo and A. de O. Sales, as well as Rev. Brigant Cassian and Dr. Woo Pak-foo.

As the representative of the association, he visited London and New York and met with the Colonial Office officials and Members of Parliament (MPs) of different parties including William John Peel, son of Hong Kong Governor Sir William Peel, and United Nations officials Ralph Bunche and Benjamin Victor Cohen over constitutional reform and other issues respectively in the 1950s.

After 34 years of service, Cheong-Leen stepped down as the second longest-serving elected officeholder in Hong Kong history, behind Brook Bernacchi's 41 years, and the longest-uninterrupted-serving elected officeholder, after he decided not to seek re-election of the Urban Council in 1991.

Legislative Councillor He was first appointed an unofficial member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong on 1 May 1973 by Governor Sir Murray MacLehose with Guy Sayer to fill the vacancies left by retired H. J. C. Browne and deceased Mary Wong Wing-cheung. In his first term in the council, he made a major speech advocating nine years of free compulsory education and followed up all the way to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which made it eventually realised. More than a year later, on 21 April 2015, the murder charge was reduced to one of culpable homicide not amounting to murder (or manslaughter). Another year later, on 31 May 2016, Dewi pleaded guilty to the manslaughter charge at the start of her trial at the High Court of Singapore, which sentenced Dewi to 18 years' imprisonment for her unlawful killing of Nancy Gan.

Cheong-Leen died on 4 January 2022, at the age of 99. Chief Executive Carrie Lam, among others, paid tribute to his life.