Lew Hing

Lew Hing (formal married name was Lew Yu ling; Chinese: 劉興; May 1858–March 7, 1934) was a Chinese born American industrialist and banker. He was one of the founding fathers of the "New Chinatown" following the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. As well, he was an important leader in the establishment of Chinatown in Oakland, California. He was known to be one of the wealthiest Chinese immigrants in America. After immigrating to the United States from China in 1871, Lew became a pioneer in the canning industry. He owned four canneries in California, in the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, Monterey, and Antioch. His canneries supplied Herbert Hoover’s American Relief program following World War I. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Lew also owned a shipping company, two hotels, and an import export business. In Mexico, he owned a cotton plantation. He was Chairman of the Board of Directors for the China Mail Steamship Company, and President of the Canton Bank of San Francisco.

Lew Hing was born May 1858 in Canton, China. He was the second of three children born to his father's third wife (after the first two wives died). Lew had an older sister and a younger brother, as well as half brothers and sisters. His birthplace and ancestral roots were in the village cluster of Li’ao (裡坳鄉) in Sunning (新寧) (the former name of the district), in the "Four Districts" (四邑) region in the Pearl River Delta Region of the province of Guangdong, China. He received his formal education in Hong Kong. Before Lew Hing was born, his father had journeyed to San Francisco to find prosperity and he didn’t find it. Rejecting conscription as a laborer, as well as the debauchery of San Francisco's Barbary Coast lifestyle, he camped along the shores of San Francisco Bay until the frustration of disappointment and loneliness caused him to return to China after two months.

Though he was never as skilled in metalwork as his older half brother had been, he nonetheless learned the basics, such as soldering. In addition, among his odd jobs he helped a European woman make her fruit jams for storage in glass jars. This taught Lew about food preservation and how to avoid food poisoning. It was a natural next step for Lew to combine his metalwork with his food preservation skills to join in the new industry of canning foodstuffs. At age 18 in 1877, Lew Hing founded his first cannery with another metalworker of Family Association ties, Lew Yu tung. The cannery was located at the northeast corner of Sacramento and Stockton Streets in San Francisco and took up the first two stories of the building with the basement as storage. Lew Hing and other Family Association members lived on the third floor. In the 1880s–1890s, canning food was still a new concept. Lew Hing had embarked on a long period of trial and error before the cannery could reliably produce safe and edible canned foods. When food was not preserved properly or the cans were not fully sterilized (for example, each can had to be soldered individually by hand), noxious bacterial action would ruin the product, causing cans to swell and even explode. Eventually, Lew Hing developed safer and more effective formulas for canning various fruits and vegetables. These formulas were never documented since they were Lew Hing's trade secrets and were kept from rival canneries. Canned fruit items became a very good seller in Chinatown as many Chinese made purchases to take back to China. Soon, the products were purchased by Westerners and sales expanded outside San Francisco's Chinatown.

Lew's original cannery thrived for over two decades. Then, in 1902, at age 44, he decided to close the cannery and retire to Canton. However, within a year Lew returned to the Bay Area, opening the Pacific Coast Canning Company at 12th and Pine Streets in Oakland. In 1928, at age 70, Lew Hing established his fourth cannery, the West Coast Canning Company, along the shores of San Pablo Bay in Antioch, California.

Lew Hing was a pioneer in California industry. The Lew Hing building remains in San Francisco's Chinatown, and Oakland's Chinatown owes incalculable gratitude to Lew. The Pacific Coast Canning Company's building had remained, though empty, at 12th and Pine Streets in Oakland. In 2006 this building was torn down and replaced by housing, Pacific Cannery Lofts, with a plaque commemorating Lew Hing and his importance to the site. After a rich career in canning, shipping, hotels, banking, and other industries, Lew Hing considered his most worthy contribution to be the swimming pool for the youth at the San Francisco Chinese YMCA, built in 1925. For more than 80 years, the pool that Lew Hing built was the only swimming pool in San Francisco's Chinatown. Inventive and industrious throughout his life, Lew Hing was very progressive for his time. He was also a man of high principles. Coming from his very humble beginning, he had great compassion for Chinese immigrants in America because he understood them well. He was a well respected gentleman who generated much business in the community and created many job opportunities for the Chinese in the Bay Area. He contributed in upgrading the quality of life for Chinese immigrants in their ordeal of assimilation and integration into the Western ways of life in these United States. He also related well to the Caucasian community, as indicated when he often attended formal civic events and was included in the inner circle of San Francisco's long time mayor, Jimmy Rolph. Lew became very American in his ways, never again desiring to return to China.