I Tsz (meaning a free Ancestral Hall), was built in 1851 on Taipingshan Street to house ancestral tablets of deceased Chinese mainlanders, many of whom had moved to Hong Kong soon after colonisation by the British, to seek a better living. Some had died homeless without relatives to arrange a burial and I Tsz provided a home for commemorative tablets (name plates) to be housed in order that relatives, arriving at a later date, could collect the tablets to take back to the mainland. Later, coffins containing the dead were also housed at I Tsz to await repatriation and some terminally ill Chinese, who had been turned out of their homes in the crowded conditions also found refuge at the temple. Following an outcry over the appalling conditions where the dead and dying lay next to each other with no medical care, the then Governor, Richard MacDonnell, agreed to a long standing request from the Chinese community for land for a Chinese hospital and this led to the founding of Tung Wah Hospital.
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