Loke Yew: A Malayan pathbreaker and pioneer - Articles

Loke Yew: A Malayan pathbreaker and pioneer

Neil Khor, Special Officer to the Mayor of Kuala Lumpur¹

Loke Yew, born in the southern China province of Fujian, migrated to Singapore aged 13, and a few years later moved to the Malayan state of Perak. It was from there that he rose from humble origins to become an extremely wealthy tycoon and one of the most famous personalities of the Federated Malay States. After spending 15 years in Perak, he moved to Selangor, where he spent the greater part of his life.

Professionally, Loke Yew focused on tin mining, applying western technological advances and adopting British business practices. He was a pioneering leader of Malaya’s Chinese community, and a public-spirited individual using his keen interest in the advent of motor vehicles to venture into roadbuilding and shipbuilding. As an enlightened strategic thinker, he invested in the education of his children, including sending his daughter for overseas education—the first woman from the Federated Malay States to be educated in the United Kingdom. This article describes some key episodes in Loke Yew’s life.

Loke Yew’s early business ventures in Perak

According to Choo Kia Peng, a prominent British-era businessman and an ‘unofficial’ Federal Councillor (1921–1927), Loke Yew’s early entrepreneurial activities in Perak were supported by Loh Ah Pang and Chan Sow Lin, two towkay friends. Both were ‘fighting men’, an essential trait for keeping discipline among the largely single, male Chinese migrant communities who were far from central authority and the social mores of the family. Loke Yew entered into a partnership with Loh and Chan in tin-mining operations in Taiping (formerly Klian Pauh), Larut district, which towards the end of the third quarter of the 19th century had emerged as the main centre of the peninsula’s flourishing tin-mining activities.

Two rival Chinese secret societies, the Ghee Hin (predominantly Cantonese) and the Hai San (predominantly Hakka and Hokkien), whose leaders were based in the Straits Settlement of Penang, and who became aligned with rival local Malay chieftains Raja Abdullah and Ngah Ibrahim, were fighting for control of Perak’s lucrative tin mines. In 1861–1873, these clans fought three bitter tin wars for the control of Larut’s tin fields, and especially the watercourse of rivers vital for water-wheel pumps and for the washing of tin ore. Loke Yew sided with the Ghee Hin and showed great leadership by volunteering to take up the task of breaking a Hai San blockade. Choo (n.d.) recorded that ‘Great stretches of the country between Bagan Serai and Krian were swamps and Loke Yew engaged dozens of Sakais (Orang Asli) and then triumphantly brought the rice to the hungry Ghee Hin after a journey of two months’.

After the end of the tin wars and the signing of the Pangkor Treaty in January 1874 by the Malay Chiefs and the British government, which agreed on the terms for British intervention in and administration of Perak, a fragile peace ensued. Based on one of the Treaty articles, three Commissioners were appointed to settle compensation questions and to arbitrate on the disputes between the Chinese clans. Water was fairly apportioned and mines at the head agreed to no longer shut off the water supply to those further down the valley.

Loke Yew worked in partnership with Chan and Loh and made a fortune from his tin-mining ventures, but lost it when the mine he owned with Chan in Taiping was destroyed in the 1873 tin war. He then went to work for Khoo Thean Teik in neighbouring Kamunting (formerly Klian Bharu) and recovered some of his fortune only to lose it again when tin prices collapsed in 1874. He quickly recovered financially, however, after securing a remunerative contract to supply food for the British troops during the Perak War (1875–1876) (Robson, 1934). From this point, he was given the right to lease and operate several revenue/tax farms² (for alcohol, gambling, and opium), including the Larut Farm (with Khoo), the Perak General Farm (with Ng Boo Bee, a mining tycoon), and a pawnbroking licence, all with support from Hugh Low, the third British Resident of Perak (1877–1889) (The Straits Times, 1920, p. 7; Butcher and Dick, 1993, p. 255)—and later when he moved to Selangor and was given similar operating rights.

As Larut's surface tin deposits started to be depleted and became more costly to extract, the epicentre of Perak’s tin-mining activities shifted south to the Kinta Valley where there was an abundance of alluvial tin ore. Loke Yow seized the opportunity and began several successful ventures in the new mining settlements of Gopeng and Kampar in the Kinta district. In a retrospective in 1931, The Straits Times reported:

After the Perak War was over and the administration of Sir High Low had got under way in the Kinta district of Perak, in which the town of Ipoh, was then non-existent, opened up rapidly and Loke Yew, as usual, was on the spot to secure his share of the spoils. He became largely interested in Kinta mining, while at the same time his Singapore business was expanding and necessitated a branch in Kuala Lumpur (The Straits Times, 1931, p. 6).

While other towkays were wary of the Straits Trading Company (STC), because of the consequences of antagonizing the Penang-based Hakka–Hokkien business combine that dominated the tin ore smelting industry, Loke Yew took a great risk and supplied his tin ore to the STC (Tregonning, 1962, p. 3). The STC was a British smelting company, established in Singapore in 1886, operating in what was at the time an almost entirely Chinese-owned industry. However, the STC had developed superior smelting technology that used coal rather than charcoal and extracted higher metallic content of better quality. This partnership with the STC was among the first encounters Loke Yew had with western technology and management practices. His gamble paid off and he was now better able to refine the tin ore accumulated from his mining interests. At the same time, the STC had a sustainable supply of tin ore to achieve ‘lift-off’.

In 1906, Loke Yew became a director of the STC. He was also a shareholder in the associate Straits Steamship Company, developing a lifelong interest in steamships that saw him visiting Aberdeen in Scotland and eventually buying shares in the Aberdeen Steamship Company. The STC transported the refined tin ingots to export markets in Asia and Europe. By 1912, the STC had become a company of global standing, smelting and shipping about two-thirds of the tin produced and refined on the Malayan peninsula, roughly equivalent to one-third of global supply (Sultan Nazrin Shah, 2024).

Federated Malay States

In the mid-1880s, Loke Yew relocated to Selangor, initially as a tax farmer but retaining substantial interests in tin mining. Later he gave up his interest in tax farming, diversifying his businesses to include a few rubber plantations and especially real estate. In 1893, he also led a management consortium, with Loke Chow Kit, that leased the Selangor railway. By all accounts he excelled as a leader of the Chinese business community, and was nominated as the Selangor Chamber of Commerce first president (1904–1907), with Chan Sow Lin and Loke Chow Kit as vice presidents, and served as a mediator and advisor to the colonial administrators (Gullick, 2017).

A special day for Loke Yew, 18 May 1903 was the day that the Malay Mail reported that ‘a certificate of naturalisation has been granted to towkay Loke Yew’ (The Malay Mail, 1903). It was reported by John Henry Matthews Robson, the newspaper’s founder and editor, who was also Loke Yew’s attorney. He was also a Federal Councillor (1909–1911 and 1921–1927). Loke Yew became a British subject, which meant that he was tying his fortune to the British Empire.

In early 20th century Malaya, British colonial administrative and economic powers were concentrated in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Melaka, and Singapore. Elsewhere on the Malay peninsula, Kuala Lumpur became the Federated Malay States administrative capital, which was linked by road and rail to other commercial centres—principally Perak, the commercial capital. British firms benefited from distinct political advantages, as well as from access to large amounts of capital through joint-stock companies floated on the London Stock Exchange. Capital from Great Britain found its way through such companies as well as through agency houses into British Malaya, mainly focused on increasing production in the tin and rubber industries.

British Malaya’s early colonial administrators, like Frank Athelstane Swettenham, John Pickersgill Rodger, Hugh Low, and Hugh Clifford, regarded Chinese towkays like Loke Yew as invaluable to the colonial enterprise. However, as the 20th century progressed, they began to be regarded as business rivals as British companies increased their ownership share in the tin and rubber industries. And with the advent of modern technology, as more land was opened up, towns constructed, and infrastructure built, Chinese labour was no longer as invaluable as in the past. Moreover, almost all the readily accessible alluvial tin mines had been exhausted and large-scale labour, which the Chinese towkays controlled, was not as efficient in deep mining operations. Coupled with labour controls, including new governmental policies restricting the free flow of labour, the cost of Chinese labour increased.

This new economic situation, alongside the passing of the pioneering generation of colonial administrators, was best demonstrated at the farewell dinner party given by Loke Yew’s right-hand man, Lee Kong Lam, in honour of Dr Ernest Aston Otho Travers, the first and pioneering British colonial surgeon in Selangor. As the Straits Times reported:

Dr Travers expressed his pleasure at being present, his regret at his coming departure after what he might regard as practically a life-long work among them, and his satisfaction at feeling, from what had been said, that he had deserved their confidence and esteem during his 22 years in Selangor. He had had, perhaps, a greater opportunity than most Englishmen of knowing them both in business and in their homes, and he could say with truth that he had always been treated with the greatest kindness and courtesy…If he might speak more specially of the Chinese, he would say that they were the backbone of the country (The Straits Times, 1913, p. 9).

Loke Yew, as the guest of honour, made a presentation to Dr Travers in recognition of a friendship that went back 20 years. Both men were responsible for setting up the Recreation Club in Kuala Lumpur, which was the junior club to the Selangor Club (RIMBA, 1922, pp. 50–51). Dr Travers was well known for ‘taking the greatest interest and helping those on the lower rungs of this world’s ladder’ (RIMBA, 1922, pp. 50–51).

While most of his contemporaries fell by the wayside because they could not adapt to the new situation, Loke Yew continued to thrive, particularly because he had already anticipated the changes and made strategic moves to break away from the traditional pioneering world of Chinese clans to embrace British Malaya’s new cosmopolitan identity. His naturalization as a British subject was part of this transformation. It was not, however, an individual effort. Instead, this new approach was carefully put together with his managers, some of whom were conversant in English and close to the new ruling class. In fact, as the century rolled on, Loke Yew increasingly turned to European managers, engineers, and attorneys, some of whom accompanied him to Europe.

A modern leader of the Chinese

As Loke Yew emerged as a leader of the Chinese community, he could no longer support narrow tribal affiliations of clan and kin, preferring organizations that cut across these divides. Having come from humble origins, he saw little point in trying to embellish his ancestry through the purchase of rank, as some wealthy Chinese were doing. Some of these ranks were purchased retrospectively, enabling the family to appear in multi-generational portraits, complete with their mandarin attire. In the 1904 issue of the Straits Chinese Magazine, for example, Loke Yew appears in a western outfit. Very few Malayans, and later Malaysians, associated Loke Yew with contemporaries like Yap Ah Loy, Chung Keng Kwee, or Khoo Thean Teik.

Loke Yew, 1845–1917
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loke_Yew.

This image of Loke Yew is further reinforced by a portrait done by Low Kway Song (1889–1982) in 1923, completed some six years after his death, and likely commissioned by one of his children. Low was the region's foremost portrait artist, dubbed Singapore's John Singer Sargent. Operating from his Empire Studio in Orchard Road, he painted portraits of politicians, royalty, and business tycoons. He was reportedly the first Singapore artist to receive a four-figure sum for a commission, a portrait of Oei Tiong Ham in 1927. Coupled with a prodigious number of articles published in the Malay Mail and other newspapers, Loke Yew successfully projected his modern image on his own terms.

Two of Loke Yew’s close friends were responsible for completing this image—the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, bringing people together on a non-sectarian basis for debate. One was Loke Yew’s nephew, Cheong Yoke Choy, and the other was his trusted lieutenant, Choo Kia Peng. In 1934, when the hall was completed at a cost of Straits$ 200,000, Cheong was elected its president. Today, the hall is a Malaysian National Heritage building.

Mobility, motor cars, and essential services

Loke Yew’s fascination with western cars, electricity, and general technology preoccupied him both at work and in the home. He became British Malaya’s most ardent supporter of the motor car and the leisure activities that came to be called automobilism.

This fitted in with his road-building commitments where he personally led some projects, in particular the road connecting Bentong, Pahang and Sungei Besi, Selangor. The advent of the motor car developed the use of these roads as an essential service. Not only was it possible to get from town to town more comfortably, but travelling became faster and more economical.

In April 1903, the The Straits Times called Loke Yew a ‘public spirited individual’, for his support of the use of cars in Kuala Lumpur. He established a motor company that ran mail between Selangor and Pahang with routes linking Pahang to Raub to Kuala Kubu; Raub to Kuala Lipis; Raub to Bentong; and a lorry between Raub and Kuala Lipis (The Straits Times, 1903, p. 2). Roads provided an essential public service which, in turn, supported his other enterprises of opening new rubber estates, cement works, and real estate.

An enlightened man of the modern world

Loke Yew’s first encounter with modern western technology had come through working with Scottish mining engineers. With his partner Thamboosamy Pillai, he installed the country’s first electric generator in Rawang, Selangor, in 1894. Mining companies were one of the largest consumers of electricity in British Malaya, accounting for about 70 per cent of national consumption in the early 1900s.

At the turn of the 20th century, Scots—with their free-education policy—were among the most advanced thinkers in science, economics, medicine, and philosophy. Even the print media—the main medium for spreading reformist ideas—came under the influence of western technological advances. For Loke Yew, to have his children educated in Scotland, considered by some to be the birthplace of the ‘Enlightenment’ that had made the modern world possible, was the right thing to do. Loke Yew and Loke Chow Kit, also a business magnate, sent their daughters to be educated at the Robert Gordon College in Aberdeen, the first Chinese women from the Federated Malay States to be sent to the United Kingdom. Eventually, his two sons would also be sent to Scotland for their education. Both the Lokes developed heritage buildings and were generous philanthropists—and had roads named after them in Kuala Lumpur.

Loke Yew visited the United Kingdom for the first time in 1902, primarily to witness the Coronation of King Edward VII. Cecil Clementi Smith, former British Governor of the Straits Settlements (1887–1893) hosted the Coronation Dinner at the Metropole in London, with the Sultan of Perak, Idris Shah (1887–1916) and Loke Yew as principal guests (The Straits Times, 1902, p. 5). In 1906–1908, he travelled extensively around the world to China, Burma, the United States, and Europe. Here was the image of the modern Malayan, a successful and sophisticated world traveller.