WIKIPEDIA OF EU TONG SEN
Early life[edit]
Eu was born in Penang, Malaya (now known as Malaysia) on 23 July 1877. His grandfather, He Song, a
feng shui master, was originally from Jiangxi but moved to
Foshan in
Guangdong, China. His father,
Eu Kong Pui (
a.k.a. Eu Kong) became a Chinese
immigrant from
Foshan and went to Penang to work as a grocery shop assistant and later laid the foundation for his son's fortune by starting tin mining and other businesses.
[4] Tong Sen's mother
Leong Lay Yong stayed in Foshan until brought to Penang, where Eu Kong had married a second wife
Mun Woon Chang who was well-connected in
Malaya,
[2] and where he died prematurely
[3] in 1890
[5] at the age of 38.
[1]
Eu built his fortune by acquiring from the British, monopolies for tax or revenue farming (opium, alcohol or spirits, gambling and pawn broking) in
Perak in the 1880s and when tin started to boom, he acquired land for mining tin. He expanded this to retailing and taxing goods from China that he sold to the miners he employed
[1][3] and set up a grocery shop in
Gopeng that was later expanded to include a Chinese dispensary for Chinese immigrants. He operated his businesses under the mark Chop Yan Sang.
[1][3] He had two younger brothers, Eu Kong Chun and Eu Kong Tak. His business partner was
Chiu Tong Hin and his attorney was
Grant Mackie of the
Straits Trading Company.
[1][3]
While he was still a child, Eu Tong Sen had been sent back to his mother in Foshan, China, to study. However, with the sudden death of his father, he found himself, at only 13, heir to the family estates and tin mining businesses. He returned to Malaya in 1892
[6][7] but his stay with his two uncles and his stepmother was short. He moved to the home of R. Butler and lived there for two and a half years, taking private tuition in English from F. W. Harley. From there he moved to
Ipoh and enrolled in a government school.
[1][5] Later he would move to Singapore where he lived for some time before moving to Hong Kong when business conditions changed.
[1]
Career[edit]
In 1898, at the age of 21, Eu took over his father's estate from Grant Mackie and discovered the business to be in decline. Over the next ten years he expanded the family business and multiply his fortune many times over. He expanded his business empire in Singapore, Malaya and Hong Kong and, at 30, was one of the richest men in the region.
[4]
In Malaya and the Straits, when tax farming was abolished and tin prices started to fall, Eu ventured into rubber plantations in British Malaya and remittances between Malaya and Hong Kong.
[1]
Tin business[edit]
At its peak, Eu's businesses owned a total of 11 mines and employed 12,000 miners.
[4] The tin business, however, was in a state of decline by the time he took over management. By 1908 he owned two mines at
Kampar, three at
Gopeng, one at
Teronoh, one at
Chenderiang, and one at
Papan, together employing about 8,000 coolies. In
Selangor he owned one mine at
Ampang and one at
Kancheng, together employing 3,000 coolies. In
Batang Benna, Negeri Sembilan, he owned one mine employing 1,000 coolies.
[3]
He set up the
Sang Woh Foundry and extended his business into the manufacture and export of tin-made items which he shipped to China and Southeast Asian countries.
[1]
Rubber business[edit]
In 1908, Eu commenced planting two estates of 450 and 250 acres (1.0 km2)
[3] and eventually grew his father's business from their original two estates of 450 and 550 acres (2.2 km2)
[1] until his rubber estates covered more than 283 hectares of land.
[4] In the 1920s when the rubber business in Malaya deteriorated, Eu shifted his focus to the remittance business in Hong Kong.
[1]
Eu Yan Sang[edit]
Main article:
Eu Yan Sang
Aside from his involvement in the tin mining and rubber industries, Eu was also responsible for extending his family business of the
traditional Chinese medicine manufacturing company,
Eu Yan Sang, into Hong Kong; he felt it was necessary to diversify out of the tin industry, which was coming under increasing government regulation.
[6][8] He transformed the business his father left him, originating from that single dispensary in Gopeng, into a chain of traditional medicine shops. In 1908 his medicine shops in Kampar and Gopeng were flourishing.
[3]
Eu Yan Sang shops in
Gopeng and
Kampar extended to providing remittance services, allowing Chinese miners and plantation workers to send their earnings home.
[1][3][9] As the remittance and medicines businesses expanded, branches were set up in Penang, Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Singapore. In 1909, Eu established a branch in the
Sheung Wan district of Hong Kong. As his branches increased and his business spread out geographically, his potential market grew accordingly.
[1][10]
In 1914, he expanded the remittance business to reach throughout Malaya as well as the
Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, and southern China.
[6][8] In the 1920s when the rubber business in Malaya deteriorated, Eu shifted his focus to the remittance business in Hong Kong.
[1]
Eu Tong Sen Limited[edit]
By the late 1920s, the most profitable part of the
Eu Yan Sang medicine shop business was in remittances and not medicines. Eu moved from Singapore to Hong Kong in 1928. On 7 January 1932, he formed Eu Tong Sen Limited in Singapore but controlled it from Hong Kong where his remittance business was showing the best potential.
Banking[edit]
In 1920, at 42, Eu, together with
Wu Sing Pang, a rich Cantonese merchant in Singapore, founded the
Lee Wah Bank with business operations in Guangdong, Singapore and Malaya. The bank was a "Cantonese" bank as opposed to Hokkien banks like the
Ho Hong Bank etc.,
[11] meaning it was set up to cater mainly to the Cantonese (or Cantonese-speaking) community.
[4]
Other Commercial Interests[edit]
His other commercial interests included shareholding in
opium farms in Singapore and Penang.
[6][8]
Personal life[edit]
Eu had a large family, with eleven wives and 24 children.
[14][15]
Outside of his businesses, Eu was an early admirer of the Shaw brothers (
Run Run Shaw and
Runme Shaw) and invited them to Singapore as his guests.
[16] He also organised and oversaw the 1928 construction on that same street of the
Majestic Theatre, a performing hall for
Cantonese opera, and for forming an opera troupe to perform there, all to entertain one of his wives who was a fan of Cantonese opera.
[17] Later, he would become the first non-European commoner to be admitted to the
Royal Ipoh Club.
[18]
Eu and
Chung Thye Phin, the Kapitan China of Perak, were "blood" brothers. They went through Chinese ceremony to become oath brothers. When Chung travelled to Hong Kong, he stayed in Eu's villa there and they kept an account of his expenses in the company's account books. Eu and Chung had common interests in motorcars, racehorses, country houses, etc. In 1903 when the Ipoh Gymkhana Club was founded, both of them decided to enter their thoroughbreds regularly in the Ipoh races. They jointly built a weekend retreat, "Forest Lodge", at Gopeng Road with a large stable. When Eu was appointed to the Federal Council, Chung sold his half-lot to Eu, who desired grander accommodations following the latter's elevation in status. In 1908, together with Chung, Eu built a large Chinese theatre in the important mining town of Kampar near Ipoh.
[3] Chung's Penang firms served as the agent for Eu in Penang before Eu opened a branch on the island. Eu's Penang branch, at least according to business directories, was the latest in his branch office network. Eu and Chung were also members of the board of directors of the Eastern Smelting Company, Ltd.
[19]
Eu took a keen interest in horse-racing, motoring and rifle-shooting. He imported the first motor car into Perak.
[3] Eu was also the pioneer of Singapore to bring in calf racing. Calf racing evolves around two men and two calves. Then, they will ride the calf through a series of obstacles before finally falling into pool of water. The men then will have to finally swim to land and run back to the starting point, the first becoming the winner.
Eu's villa in Hong Kong was called "Eucliff". It has been torn down. It was built at
Repulse Bay, overlooking the sea. The property was huge. It was built with stone like a castle. It included within its walled area a tennis court and also a swimming pool. Eucliff villa contained a statuary collection of Eu Tong Sen. When Eucliff was demolished, a statue of an anonymous World War I soldier
[20] was donated to Osborn Barracks in Kowloon where it stayed for 20 years before being relocated to
Hong Kong Park.
Eu died of a heart attack on 11 May 1941 in Hong Kong at the age of 63.
[4] However, before that fatal heart attack, Eu survived multiples heart attacks and suffered a 5-day collapse a few times.[
citation needed] He also had lung cancer but was cured.[
citation needed]