Lee foundation

Born in the village of Furong of Nan’an County in Fujian Province Li Kong Chian began his education in the privately run schools there. In 1903 he joined his father in Singapore where he studied in the Anglo-Indian School and Chongzheng School. He returned to China in 1909 to continue his secondary and tertiary education, but the 1911 Revolution cut that short. Back in Singapore he first worked as a teacher in Daonan School and as translator in a Chinese newspaper, before joining the China Guohua Company in 1915, where he was soon spotted by Tan Kah Kee. The older man not only tutored the younger in business skills but also gave him his daughter in marriage in 1920.
Seven years later Lee set up his own rubber smoking house in Maur, which became the Nam Aik (Nanyi) Rubber Company in 1928. His enterprises of rubber planting and manufacture, pineapple planting and canning soon expanded to other parts of Southeast Asia, including Singapore-Malaya, North Borneo, Indonesia and Thailand. He was known as Southeast Asia’s Rubber and Pineapple King.
Lee Kong Chian also went into banking. He became general manager and vice-chairman of Huayi Bank, and when three Chinese banks merged in 1933 to form the Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), he was appointed vice-chairman of the corporation.
Like Tan Kah Kee he poured his wealth into education and other philanthropic work. He set up the Lee Foundation in Singapore in 1952 and in Malaysia in 1960. In 1965 the Lee Foundation Ltd. was established in Hong Kong. Between 1952 and 1993 the Foundation donated sums amounting to $300 million to various causes, regardless of race, language, religion, nationality, geographical location, and with no strings attached. Seventy-five percent of that sum went to education.
When Lee Kong Chian was chairman of the Board of Directors of Huachiao School he gave huge sums to develop the school. Similarly when the University of Malaya was set up in 1949, he contributed $500 000 towards its building fund, and when Nanyang University was founded in 1953 he donated 10percent of the total fund. In 1962 he became the first Vice-chancellor of the University of Singapore. Again he gave out $1 million to set up a medical college.
Like Tan Kah Kee again he did not forget his native China when it came to giving to education. In 1939 he founded and financed the Guozhuan primary school in his home village of Furong, and in 1943 set up the Guoguang secondary school. Between 1950 and 1954 he contributed towards the financing of Xiamen University as well as the Jimei schools founded by Tan Kah Kee.
Lee Kong Chian’s work and generous contributions to education and society were recognized when he was conferred an honorary degree in law by the University of Malaya in 1958, the title PMN (Panglime Mangku Negara) by the Agong of Malaysia in 1964. Before that he had been made Dato by the sultans of Johore and of Kelantan.
Lee died in 1967 at age 74.
References:Li Yuanrong. Biography of Li Guangqian (in Chinese). Hong Kong: Mingliu chubanshe, 1998.Zheng Bingshan. Biography of Li Guangqian (in Chinese). Beijing: Zhongguo huaqiao chubanshe, 1997.Quek Soo Ngoh, Lee Kong Chian: Contributions to education in Singapore. Academic Exercise, National University of Singapore, 1986.
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