page_title: J. J. Francis
section_title: Personal life
hierarchical_section_title: J. J. Francis / Personal life
caption_attribution_description: 23 Coombe Road, Hong Kong is also called CARRICK
context_page_description: John Joseph Francis KC was a senior counsel in British Colony of Hong Kong and the first elected member of the Sanitary Board.
context_section_description: He was one of the leading Roman Catholic laymen in Hong Kong and regularly attended church services and functions. He spoke against the prejudice towards Catholics from the English non-Catholics. He also saw Bishop Raimondi, Roman Catholic Bishop of Hong Kong, as a dear friend and an educator in the path of duty for more than twenty years.
  He married to his first wife Anne Shirley in July 1864, who was born in England in 1824. She was a Protestant so they had two ceremonies, one at St. John's Anglican Cathedral performed by the Rev. J. J. Irwin, the colonial chaplain, and one in the sacristy of the Roman Catholic Church performed by Father Raimondi. She died at Bournemouth in March 1890.  He remarried to a German lady in Colombo in December 1890. She left Hong Kong in 1902 and went to live in Germany where she died in 1912.
  Francis was an inveterate lecturer until his death. He lectured on various subjects in the Chamber of Commerce and the City Hall ranging from Jesuitism in 1872 through maritime and Asian affairs to the theory of British Advocacy in 1897. He was also member of many clubs and societies. He was a founding member of the Hong Kong Jockey Club and secretary of its first rule committee. He was also a member of the Gun Club and the Rifle Association. He joined various literary and debating societies. In 1897 he took part in the founding of the St. Cecilia Society established to cultivate a taste for music and was its President. He also supported Dr. James Cantlie in the formation of the Odd Volumes Society in 1893. He played chess and kept open house in his chambers for chess players at 4.30 p.m. on Wednesdays. In 1894 he was involved in a living chess tournament organised to raise funds for the Union Church and held in the grounds of J.J. Keswick at East Point.
  Francis purchased the island of Balambangar when he visited Borneo in 1889 and planned to grow tobacco on the island. He also acquired an interest in the Hongkong Telegraph upon Robert Frazer-Smith's death in 1895 which he retained until 1900 and directed the policy of the newspaper during the period. He was also proprietor of The China Mail for a time.
  Francis worked and lived at a number of addresses in Hong Kong. The first address was 2 Mosque Street. He worked at 2 Club Chambers, D'Aguilar Street, and continued there after being admitted as a solicitor. He lived in Alexandra Terrace in 1872 and 1 Caine Road in 1873. After his admission to practise at the Bar he had his chambers in Bank Buildings. He lived in a house in Bonham Road variously called Sunnyside and Shirley House. In 1887 he was living in Seymour Terrace. In that year he had a house, which he called Stonyhurst, built in what is now Coombe Road. In 1889 he had a terrace of three houses built at Magazine Gap. They came to be called Magdalen Terrace. In 1896 he auctioned the contents of No. 3, Magdalen Terrace, 540 lots in all. At the time of his death he also owned a plot, No. 84, which was not built on.
  Stonyhurst, the house he built on 23 Coombe Road in 1887, became a Grade I Historic Building assessed by the Antiquities and Monuments Office in 2011.
caption: Stonyhurst, the house he built on 23 Coombe Road is a Grade I Historic Building since 2011.
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