Patrick Yu

Born into an intellectual Chinese family (father Yu Wa was an educator){{cite book | url=https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/S/bo37846390.html | title=A Seventh Child and the Law | publisher=Hong Kong University Press }} in Hong Kong, with ancestry from Taishan, Guangdong, Yu was educated at home for many years{{Citation needed|date=January 2010}} before attending Wah Yan College Hong Kong,{{cite book|editor1-last=Levens|editor1-first=R.G.C.|title=Merton College Register 1900-1964|date=1964|publisher=Basil Blackwell|location=Oxford|page=371}} a prominent Jesuit high school in Hong Kong. In 1938, at the age of sixteen, he was admitted to the University of Hong Kong, where he studied in the arts program as a Government Scholar.{{cite book|title=Dispersal and renewal: Hong Kong University during the war years|author=Matthews Clifford N. |author2=Cheung Oswald |page=51|year=1998|publisher=University of Washington Press|isbn=978-962-209-472-7}}

In 1941, shortly after the Pacific War had broken out, Yu served with British Naval Intelligence and was commissioned as an officer in the Intelligence Corps of the Army of the Republic of China. In 1945, Yu was awarded a Victory Scholarship by the Government of Hong Kong to continue his studies in England. He studied at Merton College, Oxford, from 1946 to 1948, and later passed his Bar Examination.

Jobless and almost penniless, Yu was forced to find himself a profession. Within a 10-month period, he familiarised himself with all the "niceties" of the English common law, studying in the Bar Library at Lincoln's Inn. In 1949, he passed the bar exam of England and Wales and practised briefly as a chancery barrister in London.{{Citation needed|date=January 2010}}

In 1950, Yu moved to Malaya for a short period to work in his uncle's (Yong Shook Lin) firm Shook Lin & Bok.{{Citation needed|date=January 2010}} He soon went back to Hong Kong, and in 1951 became the first Chinese person to be appointed Crown Counsel of that British colony.{{cite book|title=Growing with Hong Kong: the University and its graduates: the first 90 years|page=125|year=2003|publisher=University of Washington Press|isbn=978-962-209-613-4|author=University of Hong Kong}} Yu resigned in 1953 and commenced a private practice.

He soon built up a sterling reputation as an advocate, and by the mid-1960s he had already become the top criminal lawyer in town. It was also during this time he helped to establish the first law school in Hong Kong, "The Faculty of Law of the University of Hong Kong". For that, he received an Honorary LLD degree from the University of Hong Kong.

In the 1970s, Yu was offered a judgeship on the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, an invitation he declined. Two similar offers were made during the decade. Yu declined both on the grounds of the discriminatory employment terms. Yu was also known for his refusal to apply to become Queen's Counsel, a mark of distinction envied by many practitioners in Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and in many other Commonwealth countries.

In 1983, after thirty years of private practice, Yu decided to retire. He became an autobiography author and story-teller, and has published two volumes of memoirs and stories since.

He became a life member of the Hong Kong bar association in 1994.

He is a cousin of Yong Pung How, former Chief Justice of Singapore, and his younger daughter is married to the younger son of Sir Ti Liang Yang, former Chief Justice of Hong Kong.{{Citation needed|date=March 2023}}

Yu died on 12 January 2019.{{cite web|url=https://news.mingpao.com/pns/%E6%B8%AF%E8%81%9E/article/20190116/s00002/1547577168223|title=首華人檢察官余叔韶逝世 享年96 李柱銘讚令洋法官對華大狀改觀|date=16 January 2019|access-date=16 January 2019|language=zh}}

{{Reflist}}

• Tales from No. 9 Ice House Street, 2002 {{ISBN|962-209-580-1}}
• A Seventh Child and The Law, 2000 {{ISBN|962-209-524-0}}

• List of graduates of University of Hong Kong

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Category:1922 births

Category:2019 deaths

Category:Alumni of Merton College, Oxford

Category:Alumni of the University of Hong Kong

Category:Alumni of Wah Yan

Category:Chinese military personnel of World War II

Category:Barristers of Hong Kong