Dr. Victoria Chung (1897-1966)

Victoria Chung in a fishing village, ca. 1962.
Photo courtesy of Liang Xiaoqing and Chen Puqi.

Victoria Chung was born in the city for which she was named in 1897 and after graduating from Vic High in 1916 and winning a scholarship, became one of the first women in BC to train as a physician at the University of Toronto. In 1923, the year the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, she went to work in China where she lived for the rest of her life. At the outbreak of the Second World War she had the option of leaving China, but chose to stay on in the country. After the revolution in 1949, rather than joining the Communist Party she remained a committed Christian. Despite this, the Chinese government named Chung a “model worker” in the 1950s and later presented her with an award as a “national hero of culture.” She died of cancer in 1966 in China.