William Mercer

Born:

Date: 17/Oct/1821

Married:

Spouse: Mary Philips Nind, third daughter of the Rev. P. Nind, Vicar of Woodcot, Oxfordshire.

Died:

Date: 23/May/1879

Notes:

	M.A. (Oxon.)
	Private Secretary to the Governor of Hong Kong.
	Colonial Treasurer of Hong Kong
	Member of the Royal Asiatic Society.
	d.s.p.

Abridged notes from other internet sites

The Royal Asiatic Society:

The Society was founded in London in March 1823 for the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts, in relation to Asia. It received its Royal Charter from King George IV on August 11, 1824.

In January 1847, the Hong Kong Branch was founded. Besides the Governor, the first office-bearers included Andrew Shortrede, editor of the "China Mail"; Major-General D’Aguilar; the Colonial Surgeon, Peter Young; the Colonial Treasurer, William Mercer; John Bowring the younger (of Jardines); and Thomas Wade, the celebrated interpreter and envoy to China, who later became famous as inventor of the Wade system or Romanization of Chinese. As Sir Thomas Wade he was to become the President of the Society in London in 1887.

Deacons:

Few companies can claim to have such a long and prestigious history as Hong Kong law firm Deacons. The firm's founder, William Bridges, arrived in Hong Kong in 1851, just nine years after Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Nanking. His arrival on the "barren rock," as Hong Kong was then called, was to practice law at the invitation of the Governor's Private Secretary, William Mercer.