Cecil Hynes LYSON [1886-1925]

The following passage is from Tracing my Children's Lineage by Eric Ho:

Cecil Hynes Lyson married my Aunt Violet, eldest daughter of Lo Cheung-Ip, my maternal grandfather’s elder brother. Cecil’s father was known as Wong Lai-sang. He and his brother , Wong Lai-chuen, were sired by a Bavarian diplomat von Liesenburg. The sound for von is close to that for Wong, the surname they adopted. However Wong Lai-sang considered that his son needed a foreign surname to make a living in Hong Kong, but his daughters must retain a Chinese surname, otherwise, Chinese men would not be disposed to marry them. European men would want local girls only as mistresses. As Cecil’s mother was Chan Kai-ming’s sister, and a Tyson, they settled on Lyson for Cecil, while remaining Wong. It will be apparent Lyson is close to Lai Sang in sound as well.

This information is confirmed by Henry Ching in his unpublished document, Elite Eurasian Families of Hong Kong. Henry adds that Cecil's mother was Charlotte Chan, who was a sister of Chan Kai Ming (George Bartou Tyson), the millionaire and member of Legco.

Cecil Lyson had an incidental role in the history of my Warren/Olson Hong Kong family. He and his wife appear in a photo with Charles Olson and his wife, Ethel at the Lysons' week-end bungalow.

From the Carl Smith records we learn: C.H. Lyson served with distinction in the Great War – promoted to Captain. Son of W. Lyson who was in PWD for a number of years but left to join Mr Hazeland, architect. CH Lyson joined Lyson and Hall, solicitors. Cecil and Violet had a daughter, Olive Lyson b. 1925.

In July 1919 a short lived competitor to C.E. Warren & Co. Ltd. suddenly began to advertise sanitary ware at the same time and sometimes next to the Warren ads. It was called Lyson Company. Without any specific information, a Warren cousin who chronicled the Warrens' Hong Kong family history has speculated whether the company was anything to do with the Lyson family. Its emergence came at a fragile moment for C.E. Warren following the split up of the company partnership with John Olson jnr. A possible hypothesis might be that Cecil's uncle, Chan Kai-ming, well known for his generosity, gave his newly returned nephew a handsome present to enable him to set himself up professionally in Hong Kong to make up for the years he had lost during his war service. Although Cecil became a solicitor, the capital could potentially have enabled investing in a new company that acted as an offshoot of Hazeland Architects where Cecil's father worked. The connection is unproven and Lyson Company stopped advertising after a couple of years, well before Cecil Lyson's untimely death. Chan Kai-ming himself died in December 1919 before the company was registered, but several months after it had started advertising its wares in the newspapers. I haven't been able to find out whether the company was ever formally wound up.