Sir John Cowperthwaite

An item in today's (Hong Kong) The Standard reminded me that a friend -- who has lived in Hong Kong for a long, long time -- several days ago sent me a link to an obituary in the UK's Daily Telegraph. The Standard's piece looks like it heavily relied on the Telegraph obit. . . Thus, spurred on by the Standard, I went back to the Telegraph. After all, Cowperthwaite, it turns out, was one of the chief architects of Hong Kong's post-war success.

Another aspect of Cowperthwaite's modus operandi was a habit of holding his cards very close to his chest. When Milton Friedman asked him, in 1963, to explain the mechanism which kept the Hong Kong dollar pegged to the pound, Cowperthwaite remarked that even the management of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank (through which the peg was operated) did not understand it - "Better they shouldn't. They would mess it up." As for the paucity of economic statistics for the colony, Cowperthwaite explained that he resisted requests to provide any, lest they be used as ammunition by those who wanted more government intervention.

A Colonial Administrator chap of the Old School: polished, amusing, with a razor-sharp mind. And whatever else the Daily Telegraph is, its obits are generally first class: Torygraph obit
The last sentence of that obit, moreover, rang a bell or three, the one about the son "predeceased them". Cowperthwaite. . . A quick google confirmed the link: the Boracay serial slaying in May, 2004: property developer Anton Faustenhauser, Hong Kong gallery owner Manfred Schoeni, Hong Kong-based British architect John Cowperthwaite, and Filipina maid Erma Sarmiento.