Tong King-sing

Who was Tong King-sing?

Tong King-sing, also known as Tang Tingshu was a Chinese comprador, interpreter, and businessman during the late Qing dynasty. Born in Xiangshan, Guangdong province, he studied in Robert Morrison's missionary schools as a boy and his classmates included Yung Wing. Because of the knowledge of English he obtained employment in the Hong Kong colonial government between 1851–57 and 1857–61, he served the Chinese Maritime Customs Service as interpreter and chief secretary. In 1861-63, he joined the Jardine Matheson Company as a salesman in Tianjin. He authored the work The Chinese Instructor, a six-volume series of dialogues, published in 1862.

Tong is mainly known for his participation in a number of officially sponsored commercial projects during the last decades of the Qing dynasty, collectively known as enterprises under "official supervision and merchant management". Between 1873-84 he served as the general manager of China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company in Shanghai, after which he worked in the coalmines in Kaiping in Hebei until his death in 1892. In Tangshan near Kaiping he was also a promoter of the Kaiping Tramway