Davies, Stephen Nicholas Guy
BSc(Econ) Wales; MSc(Econ); PhD London
Professor Stephen Davies comes from a British naval family that has been connected with Hong Kong for almost a century. He first arrived in Hong Kong in 1947, was schooled in Britain, served in the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and returned to teach political theory at The University of Hong Kong in 1974. Between 1990 and 2004, he and his partner sailed 50,000 miles, visiting 27 countries in their 11.8m sailing sloop Fiddler’s Green II.
In 2005, Professor Davies opened Hong Kong’s young maritime museum as the founding Museum Director. He retired in January 2011 having found the museum its new home on the city’s Central waterfront, got government financial support, helped create a HK$80 million endowment fund from shipping industry donors, and finalised the gallery layout. Until July 2013, he was the museum’s first China State Shipbuilding Corporation Maritime Heritage Research Fellow completing gallery storylines, display panel texts, object selection and captions, and scripting 23 audio-visual interactive displays.
Professor Davies has been an Honorary Institute Fellow of The University of Hong Kong’s Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences since 2004. He was appointed a Chevalier de I’Ordre du Mérite Maritime by the Government of France in 2009 for his contributions to cross-cultural maritime scholarship and education in Hong Kong. On 1 January 2016, he was appointed Honorary Professor in the Department of Real Estate and Construction, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong.
