More When I Know You Better: The Life of Albert Sanguinetti, 1923–2009

Unlike most people, Albert Sanguinetti stipulated that after his death, his ashes should be scattered and that no tablet or memorial should be erected in his name. Not even a small head stone in an obscure churchyard or a name to squint at in a hundred on the wall of a columbarium. Baulking though at thorough obliteration from the human record, he set out in his will provisions for " a writer be selected ... to write and edit a book ... relating events and my activities", and most people do not do that either. He made this provision because, he said, many friends and acquaintances had persistently asked him to do so during his life and that he particularly owed it to Gibraltar and Hong Kong to record historical events in which he had been involved. It came to pass that Sanguinetti's nephew and trustee, James Gordon, who lives in Gibraltar, approached me to put this biography together. I had been introduced to Sanguinetti in late 2008 to discuss writing his life story from his own account, supported by documents. Writing a history from this base is not as easy as it might sound, requiring energy and persistence from both parties. Sadly, these were fading in Sanguinetti and when he went into hospital, the project was dropped. Ten years later, I have had the chance to carry it through for him.

I am grateful for the earlier research done by Brian McElney and for his anecdotes on his long friendship with Sanguinetti, and for a further version of his early years provided by Virginia Blackburn. Much information and support was given to me from Gibraltar by James Gordon and here in Hong Kong by his friend and trustee, Gladys Li. Sanguinetti would have been 99 years old this year, had he lived, so there is almost no one left from his earlier life to recall him. Of his later years, I learned much from his loyal friends Peter and Audrey Ho and from the companion of his last decade who generously and poignantly brought back his memories for me.

The archive I have worked from consists of boxes of Sanguinetti's files containing correspondence, press cuttings, magazine articles, memoranda, transcripts of statements, interviews, invitations, meeting minutes, and various court judgements that he kept because they had involved him, related to him, or simply interested him. This includes notes he made on these documents. While some of the information in the text is not associated with a particular citation or official case number, the majority of the quoted and referenced material can be found in these files. Where these documents have been in Hong Kong and to hand, I have included citations referring to the archive by the number of the box that the document has been kept in. Some information, including that transmitted in emails, is kept in Gibraltar.

Thirteen years on from his death, the world Sanguinetti lived and worked in has been significantly altered. Hong Kong is 25 years on from colonial rule and much more integrated with the motherland. While he had been an ardent supporter of the Common Law, he was also a friend to the China of his day and had backed the negotiations for the Joint Declaration in the 1980s. It is impossible to guess what his opinions of today's world would have been, and this book makes no attempt to do so, focusing instead on the man himself and the life he lived.

I refer to him as Sanguinetti throughout the text which is the usual practice in a biography and because I did not want to imply, by use of his first name, any long friendship. I met him only occasionally, over a matter of weeks, but that was a privilege and a delight, and I only wish there had been time to hear more of this story from his own lips.

Stuart Wolfendale
Hong Kong, August 2022