Firsts
- Charles Elliot, first administrator
- Henry Pottinger, first governor
- John Francis Davis, first Sinologist to serve as governor
- John Bowring, first Puritan to serve as governor
- John Pope Hennessy, first Irishman to serve as governor
- Matthew Nathan, first Jew to serve as governor
- Cecil Clementi, first Indian-born and Cantonese-speaking governor
- Mark Aitchison Young, first prisoner of war to serve as governor
- Takashi Sakai, first Japanese administrator to serve as governor
- Murray MacLehose, first non-colonial officer to serve as governor; he was a diplomat, a foreign service officer
- Edward Youde, first governor fluent in Mandarin; only governor to die in office
- Chris Patten, first politician to serve as governor; only governor not to don the formal dress as Governor; only governor never to have held any title of nobility during tenure
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