Wu Tingfang

Also known as Wen Jue · Zhi Yong

Wu Tingfang, born Wu Xu, courtesy name Wenjue, came from a Xinhui family in Guangdong but was born in Malacca in 1842, and studied at St Paul's College in Hong Kong. In 1874 he went to London at his own expense to read law at Lincoln's Inn, and in 1877 became the first Chinese called to the English bar; practising in Hong Kong, he was named in 1880 the first Chinese member of its Legislative Council. From 1882 he worked on foreign affairs in Li Hongzhang's secretariat, and in 1896 he became Qing minister to the United States, Spain and Peru, returning in 1902 to revise the dynasty's laws with Shen Jiaben. In the 1911 peace talks he spoke for the southern revolutionaries, and in 1912 he was minister of justice in the Nanjing provisional government. As foreign minister in Beijing he refused in 1917 to countersign the order dissolving parliament, went south to join Sun Yat-sen's constitutional-protection government, and died in Guangzhou in June 1922.