City Hall was too small for Keswick’s meeting, which had to be held on the cricket ground.

On January 19, 1880, Ng Choi became the first Chinese member of Hong Kong's Legislative Council. The appointment was only temporary. Ng Choi was a British subject. He had been born in Singapore and educated in England and was the first Chinese barrister to be called to the English bar and the first to practice in Hong Kong.

At first, he was popular with the expatriate community until he became a little too friendly with Sir John Pope Hennessy, the unpopular Irish governor of Hong Kong. Hennessy had a habit of appointing his favourites to government posts only to sack them later on a whim. Some historians have described him as "a man ahead of his time". Opinions differ – after Hennessy had left Hong Kong it was reported that the British Secretary of State, Lord Kimberley, "desired that a sponge should be wiped over Sir J.P. Hennessy's record at H.Kong."

Pope Hennessy had abolished the inhumane practice of flogging criminals in public. This move was judged by the expatriate community to be responsible for the horrendous crime wave that followed. In 1878 things got so bad that William Keswick, who was the taipan of Jardine, Matheson & Co, known as "The Princely Hong", called a public meeting to condemn the governor's policy. (A taipan was the head of a hong, which was a large trading company). Keswick was the most influential merchant prince in the colony at the time.

The meeting was held at City Hall. To everybody's surprise, Ng Choi turned up with 300 Chinese merchants in support of the governor. They filled the place, so the meeting had to be held on the nearby cricket ground. When Keswick refused to provide an interpreter, with a gracious wave of his fan, Ng Choi signalled to his supporters to depart, leaving 60-odd Europeans in a state of bewildered confusion. Ng Choi wrote a letter to Hong Kong's leading newspaper, the China Mail, in which he asked why more consideration was not given to his fellow-countrymen who had attended a European public gathering in Hong Kong for the very first time.

Two years later, Hennessy appointed Ng Choi to the Legislative Council. Hong Kong was way behind many other British colonies when it came to employing members of the local population to serve in government. Singapore had had a Chinese on its Legislative Council since 1869 and Hennessy had appointed other Chinese when he governed Labuan Island in Malaysia. It was part of Tory Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's colonial policy to use local talent in parts of the British Empire where he considered it appropriate.

Ng Choi persuaded the governor to allow the Chinese community to buy and build on land near Victoria Barracks. This infuriated the garrison commander, Major-General Donovan, who was not on speaking terms with the governor, and provoked him into refusing to allow a military band to play at Government House on the Queen's Birthday.

Unfortunately Ng Choi had unwisely speculated in property and almost went bankrupt. He resigned from the Legislative Council and left the colony. But his financial problems did not signal the premature end of his career. He went to China where, under the name Wu Ting Fan, he became an Imperial Mandarin and legal advisor to the great Chinese statesman Li Hung-chang.

In 1897, he dropped into Hong Kong on his way to the Americas to take up the post of Chinese Minister to the United States, Spain and Peru. The colony's Chief Justice, Sir John Carrington, threw a magnificent banquet in his honour.