Sir Vandeleur Molyneux Grayburn (28 July 1881 – 21 August 1943) was the chief manager of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation from 1930 to 1943.

He was the most powerful financier in the Far East in the 1930s,[1] and took an important role in establishing Hong Kong dollar as the official currency of the colony.

A board was set up and Grayburn was appointed as a member under the chairmanship of J. H. Kemp and C. G. Alabaster to consider application and to allot the bonds.

[12][13] V. M. Grayburn acted as chief manager of the HSBC in March 1930 in succession to retiring A. C. Hynes and was officially appointed by the board in July.

[6] During his spell as chief manager, he oversaw the Hong Kong dollar abandoned silver standard and became a distinct unit of currency.

V. M. Grayburn was appointed member of the Economic Commission to advise Governor William Peel on the monetary issues in July 1934.

The report of the commission in February 1935 concluded the Hong Kong government should not abandon the silver standard as China, the colony's largest trading partner remained on it.

The Income Tax Bill was subsequently passed in the Legislative Council despite strong opposition from the unofficial members and the business community.

[26] The bank had also a large amount of US dollar reserve in the United States to avoid its assets being frozen if the Hong Kong office was fallen into Japanese's hand.

[27] In 1941 the British government appointed Morse as acting chief manager and chairman[28][29] and commanded all branches of HSBC to follow order from London.

[31] V. M. Grayburn joined the resistance activities associated with the British Army Aid Group (BAAG), a Southern China-based para-military organisation formed mainly by Britons who escaped from Hong Kong aiming to assist prisoners of war to escape from the Japanese army's POW camps.

[33] To help the British civilians in the Stanley Internment Camp, Grayburn assisted in raising money for them so they could buy extra rations from official canteens and the black market.

Grayburn asked Dr. Harry Talbot to smuggle cash back into the camp when he was sent out from Stanley for treatment at the French Hospital but was caught by the Kempeitai.

[1] Grayburn and his assistant Edward Streatfield went to the Foreign Affairs Office and confessed he was responsible for the smuggling and money-raising operations.

Khader Bux, an Indian warder, acted as a medical officer, applied to the Japanese authorities four times for a doctor but none was sent.

There was no doubt whatever of the great regret of the bulk of the Indian warders and several of them expressed their resentment at the attitude of the Japanese in not affording him qualified medical aid.

On 15 September 1943, the Colonial Office wrote to the HSBC in London with news of the death and, basing itself on Red Cross reports, gave the cause as "avitaminosis",[36] while Emily Hahn, an American journalist and also friend of Grayburn said she had heard from the Gendarmes said "with amazing candor that he had died of beriberi".

[1] There was a medical examination when his body was returned to Stanley Camp, but the doctors refused to reach a verdict because of the advanced state of decomposition.

[37] Dr. Talbot, the last doctor to see him before his death told the war crimes trial that Grayburn died of septicaemia as there were no sulphonamide (anti-bacterial) drugs were administered which could have saved him.