Dr Lim Boon Keng, His Life and Work

Dr Lim Boon Keng was born in 1869. He was of Peranakan origin and was educated in Raffles Institution and won the first Chinese Queen's Scholarship established by Clementi Smith in 1889. He went to Edinburgh to study medicine and returned in 1893. His first wife,which he married at a Presbyterian Church in 1896, gave him four sons but died early in 1905. In 1908, he remarried and he had another son and daughter.

At around this time, he also became the director of companies producing rubber and tin which the British used in the World War 1. In 1912, he was a founding member of the Kuomintang, Singapore Branch. In 1918, he was awarded the Order of British Empire for his services to the crown. When the war came in 1942, he was already an old man of 73,however, he was forced to be the chairman of the Overseas Chinese Association. He lived through these hard times and he died in 1957 at the advanced age of 89 .

He was a member of the Legislative Council between 1895 and 1902. He helped voice baba concerns. He was also the main spokesman for the Baba reform group. In 1896, he headed a Commission of Enquiry into the sources of poverty in Singapore. He was also the Justice of Peace and also a member of the Chinese Advisory Board. In 1897, he founded the Philomatic Society and also helped publish the first `Straits Chinese Magazine` . He was against the wearing of the pigtail.

In 1899, he founded the first English medium school for Chinese girls, the Singapore Chinese Girls' School which he and his wife taught Mandarin in. He was very against the sale of opium as he knew the bad effects which came with it.