“A few friends and I visited him on Saturday in hospital. He looked at us and he was smiling,” said Lee, who retired from her post in 2005.

Ip said she was told by the daughter of Akers-Jones that he died of colon cancer. The illness was at an advanced stage when discovered, she added.

“Sir David Akers-Jones made a great contribution to Hong Kong, especially when he was secretary for the New Territories,” Ip, who had a long working relationship with the British official, said. “He was responsible for developing new towns, including Sha Tin and Yuen Long ... He played a big role in Hong Kong’s development.”

In a statement on Monday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor called Akers-Jones a respected elder. On behalf of the government and in her private capacity, Lam also expressed her condolences for his family.

She said she had visited him several times in the past few weeks during which Akers-Jones had given her much support and advice. She also praised his spirit of serving the community, adding that his contribution to society would never be forgotten.

David Wilson, who served as Hong Kong governor from 1987 to 1992, told the Post Akers-Jones had been an outstandingly good and effective member of the Hong Kong civil service.

“He was also an enthusiast for a higher standard of public housing as chairman of the Housing Authority,” Wilson said. “Sir David devoted his life to Hong Kong. He had a deep understanding and affection both for the territory and for the people of Hong Kong. He will be sadly missed by all who knew him." 

Ip said Akers-Jones, as chief secretary before the 1997 handover, “contributed to the smooth transition” of Hong Kong from a British colony to a special administrative region under China, after the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed.

She added that he was responsible for implementing universal suffrage in Hong Kong at the district council elections level in 1982, and praised him as a “staunch supporter of ‘one country, two systems’”.

Akers-Jones was an influential figure in Hong Kong politics for many years, with an illustrious public sector career spanning more than five decades. He served as chief secretary from 1985 to 1987, and briefly, acting governor for Hong Kong.

He was also awarded the city’s highest honour, the Grand Bauhinia Medal, in 2002.

Since his retirement from the government in 1987, the former No 2 official has remained active in the business sector, having served on the boards of several companies such as Hysan Development.

In November 2011, when he spoke at Leung Chun-ying’s election rally, Akers-Jones defended Leung from blame over the ill-fated annual target of 85,000 flats, set under Tung Chee-hwa’s administration. That figure was scrapped after a slump in property prices.

Leung was a cabinet adviser when Tung held the top post as Hong Kong’s first chief executive since its return to Chinese rule.

In a Facebook post on Monday, Leung praised Akers-Jones as a “good civil servant” and “an old friend of China” who had done his best for Hong Kong’s stable transition, as well as in tackling the housing problem and promoting young people’s sense of national identity.

“On Sunday morning, my wife and I visited him in hospital. And we still said: ‘See you after returning from Beijing. David, rest in peace. There is no problem that Hong Kong cannot resolve,” Leung’s post read.

Shelley Lee, who worked under Akers-Jones for three years in the 1970s, said: “He not only dealt with the rural landlords, he also cared for women in the low-income group. He asked me to set up Yin Ngai Society in different districts to help women organise themselves and get support. He’s a kind man.”

Lee and her former colleagues have kept in touch with Akers-Jones and celebrated his birthday with him every year. “Even long after his retirement, he still held Hong Kong in his heart. He’s often frowning, thinking about the problems of our city.”

Former legislator Frederick Fung Kin-kee praised Akers-Jones as a down-to-earth official. Fung said he started dealing with Akers-Jones in the early 1980s when he was elected a municipal councillor. “He was a senior official at the time but he still spared some time to meet elected members and concern groups in person regularly,” Fung said.

“Akers-Jones could speak fluent Cantonese. It also helped him obtain a good understanding of the local sentiment and what locals needed,” Fung added, referring to a later post in the 1990s with the Housing Authority that Akers-Jones would take up.

In December 2016, Akers-Jones became the first political heavyweight to indicate his support for New People’s Party chairwoman Regina Ip’s bid for the city’s top job.

Born in Sussex, Britain, he graduated from Oxford University in 1953. His involvement in Hong Kong affairs dates back to 1957 when he first arrived to begin a career in the civil service.

Akers-Jones served in many important posts in the city, including principal assistant colonial secretary, and secretary for the New Territories, which was later retitled as secretary for city and New Territories administration.

It was in the New Territories that Akers-Jones made his mark. He was instrumental in turning small villages into “new towns” to absorb the population of those in rundown squatter communities. He was also in charge of administering the small-house policy in the 1980s.

In an interview with the Post in 2012, Akers-Jones said there should be a radical rethink of the policy, which allows indigenous male residents of old villages in the New Territories to build a village house once they reach 18 years of age. The dimensions of such properties are limited.

In his interview Akers-Jones said these constructions had escaped the control of the government as they were exempted from building laws and left in the hands of district officers, who were not professional enough and bounded by care for people’s needs.

He also conceded that the government was grateful to the Heung Yee Kuk, a powerful rural body overseeing needs of New Territories residents, for its staunch support during the 1967 leftist riots, thereby granting the kuk a string of concessions made on the small-house policy.

In 1986, after the city was rocked by the sudden death of governor Edward Youde, Akers-Jones became acting governor until 1987.

From 1987 to 1992, Akers-Jones was the chairman of the Housing Authority. The post at the time was not considered to be under the administration, and usually assigned to a well-respected figure with a track record in the civil service.

Between 1992 and 1997, he also served as Hong Kong affairs adviser to the central government.

The appointment by Beijing raised eyebrows in Britain in the run-up to the 1997 handover, but Akers-Jones told the London Telegraph he had received “nothing but thumbs-up signs publicly and privately from people all over Hong Kong”. He denied he was unpatriotic.

“My concern is for the people of Hong Kong and that is why I have agreed to become an adviser to China,” he said in an interview with The Independent in 1993.

Apart from his grasp of Cantonese and allegiance to Hongkongers, he was known as a soft-spoken man with an academic air about him.

Akers-Jones is survived by his adopted daughter Bryony. He had a son, Simon, also adopted, who was killed in a car accident in 1981, at the age of 24.