Chow is said to have been born in Wong Chuk Hang San Wai, a village at the foot of present-day Shouson Hill.

[citation needed] Among the third group of Chinese students sponsored by the Qing government to the United States in the 1870s,[2] Chow left China in 1874 and studied at Phillips Academy, Andover (class of 1880)[3] After his graduation, he was originally granted admission offer of Columbia University, but his studies ended due to recall of students by the Qing government.

Later he was the president of the China Merchant Steam Navigation Company of Tianjin from 1897 to 1903, and the managing director of the Peking-Mukden Railway between 1903 and 1907.

He was the President of the Hong Kong Society of the Protection of Children and Patron of the Chinese Mission to Lepers, member of the District Watchmen Committee, Permanent Advisor of the Tung Wah Hospital, Public Dispensaries, and the Po Leung Kuk.

He was knighted in 1926 and awarded the Order of the Silver Jubilee in 1935 by King George V.[5] Shouson Hill, in the south of Hong Kong Island, is named after him.