This is an interesting question, from the perspective of non-Mandarin speakers prior to the advent of Modern Standard Chinese.
This is a page from the boxing manual《虎鶴雙形拳》Tiger-Crane Boxing written by 林世榮 Lam Sai Wing. Lam was a Cantonese from 南海 Nan Hai, a student of the famed 黃飛鴻 Wong Fei Hung. The years of his life (1861 – 1942) would suggest that he spoke only Cantonese, and was schooled in Classical Chinese.
Observe, however, the use of the word 他 to indicate the 3rd person in the text. Although the overall grammar and lexicon employed is Literary Chinese and not Modern Mandarin, it would appear that 他 was an accepted written form of the 3rd person among Cantonese speakers writing in the literary language.