Hong Kong Sanitary Board plebiscite, 1896

The Hong Kong Sanitary Board plebiscite of 1896 took place in June 1896 to decide whether the constitution of the Sanitary Board should have an official or unofficial majority. It was the only plebiscite conducted by the Hong Kong Government on record. The other de facto referendum launched by the pro-democracy camp through the by-election in 2010 was not officially recognised.

The result of the plebiscite was overwhelmingly for unofficial majority, however no constitutional changes were made for Sanitary Board, though the constitutions of the Executive and Legislative Council were changed as unofficial members were added as a result.

The 1896 plebiscite could be seen as part of the first major debate on the constitutional reform in the crown colony during the 1890s. It was much earlier than the Governor Mark Aitchison Young's Young Plan in the 1940s and 1950s and the rise of the modern pro-democracy camp in the 1980s.

The Sanitary Board was established in 1883 in responsible of improving the sanitary conditions in the city as the result of Osbert Chadwick's report in 1881 advised.

Under the 1887 Public Health Ordinance, the Board was composed of four official members and no more than six unofficial members, and that four official members should be appointed by the Governor (two of them being Chinese) and two elected by the ratepayers who were on the jury lists of the election year. Two elections were held in 1888, 1891 and 1894 respectively.

The bubonic plague of 1894 raised the question of the composition and powers of the Board. The Government's decision of appointing a Medical Officer of Health to the Board in 1895 was against the will of the unofficial members. John Joseph Francis, the three times elected member resigned, and other three unofficial members Ho Kai, William Hartigan and Robert Kennaway Leigh followed.

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