People · Municipal Police commissioner
Kenneth John McEuen
麦高云b. 1879
British commissioner of the Shanghai Municipal Police at the time of the May Thirtieth Incident in 1925, removed from office afterwards.
Kenneth John McEuen (麦高云, Màigāoyún) headed the Shanghai Municipal Police from 1913 until the May Thirtieth Incident of 1925.
Born in Hong Kong in 1879, the son of an earlier Shanghai police chief inspector, McEuen was educated in Britain and trained at a Royal Irish Constabulary school. He came to Shanghai in May 1900 as a probationary officer, became deputy chief inspector in 1904 and chief inspector in September 1913. In 1919 his title was changed to commissioner of police.
When police fired on demonstrators on 30 May 1925, he was named as the officer responsible. He was criticised in the press and became the subject of an inquiry. The gazetteer says the Municipal Council, under that pressure, removed him from his post but granted him a pension of 1,500 pounds a year. It gives no death date.