Lee Yuk Wang, Lingnan alumni of Class 1943, was born on 3 May 1919 in Jiujiang, Nanhai, China. The character “Wang” (宏) was originally written with a Chinese radical meaning “water” on the left side (浤), which was later dropped as people often mispronounced the word.
Lee moved to Hong Kong with his family when he was a child. He had received private tuition at home for a year before entering The Hong Kong Branch School of Lingnan University on Stubbs Road in 1928. Upon graduation from primary school, he was admitted into the Lingnan-Affiliated Middle School in Guangzhou. Just before the Japanese took over Guangzhou during their invasion in 1937, Lee shepherded other Lingnan students back to Hong Kong and resumed classes at Liang Yuan on 18½ miles, Castle Peak Road. In September 1939, he entered the Department of Chemistry at Lingnan University, which had then relocated to Hong Kong and held its classes in a borrowed campus on the site of the University of Hong Kong. During his university, he became the president of Lingnan Students’ Self-Government Association (or the Student Union). Subsequent to the fall of Hong Kong during the Second World War, Lingnan was suspended. Lee, together with other students and staff, had to flee Hong Kong, during which time he assisted Dr. Lee Ying Lam, the President of Lingnan University, with the plan to reopen Lingnan in Shaoguan. One of Lee’s missions was to stow away from Shaoguan to Macau and Hong Kong in 1942, bringing with him a letter prepared by President Lee Ying Lam and deliver it to Dr. Chu Yu-kwang [Registrar], Dr. Chuang Chai-hsuan [Dean of College of Arts], Mr. Tse Chiu-kit [Operation Officer], and Yeung Chung-Kwong [Head Teacher, Lingnan-affiliated Middle School]. This letter is a highlight in this special collection of Lingnan’s records.
Since Lingnan did not set up a Chemistry department after it reopened, Lee undertook chemistry study at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou as a transient student. On recommendation by Dr. Lee Ying Lam, he began working in a chemical factory in Guilin established by Mr. Lin Yee Min, Council Member of Lingnan University. Later on, he went to Hong Kong and was engaged in industrial chemicals trading business with paint factories. He continued to take part in the affairs of the Lingnan University Alumni Association (Hong Kong), and had acted as Vice Chairman and [Senior Director]. From 1992 to 1997, he was the Chief Editor of the Lingnan Newsletters, to which he contributed a substantial number of articles himself.
