Chung Keng Quee
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Chung Keng Quee (Chinese:鄭景貴) (Zheng Jinggui 1829 to 1916) was a millionaire philanthropist and leader of a secret society. He was born into a peasant family in Xin Cun village, Cheng Sheng (Zengcheng) county, of Guangdong province, China. He was about 20 years of age when he came to Malaya around 1841, sent by his mother, Madam Lai, to look for his father, Chung Hsing Fah (Chung Xingfa), an indentured labourer who had come to Malaya in order to make a living, during a time of great turbulence in China.
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[edit] The Larut Wars
In the time when Ngah Ibrahim was administrator of Larut the Chinese had increased in number and in early 1860 two large groups were formed by the Chinese, the "Five Associations" whose members worked in the mines of Klian Pauh and the "Four Associations" whose members worked in the mines of Klian Baharu.
Mining rights were given to the Hakka "Five Associations" or Go-Kuan (Chinese:五館 or 五群) and the Cantonese "Four Associations" or Si-Kuan (四館). Chung Keng Quee (Chinese:鄭景貴) was leader of the Hakka Go-Kuan and the Hai San (Chinese:海山) society they belonged to and began to operate his tin mines in Larut (see Larut, Matang) in 1860. Larut was destined to be plagued by four major wars between members of both the Ghee Hin Society (Chinese:義興私會黨) that owned the Cantonese Go-Kuan and the Hakka Hai San society. Many Hakka fled China when the Taiping Rebellion broke out there and found work in the mines of Chung Keng Quee establishing his position over the mining area in Larut as leader of the Hai San from 1860 to 1884.
The First Larut War began in July 1861 when arguments over control of watercourse to their mines escalated and led members of the Hai San Society to drive the members of the Ghee Hin society out of Klian Bahru (now known as Kamunting). The Governor of Straits Settlement, Colonel Cavenagh intervened and the Mentri of Larut, Ngah Ibrahim, was made to compensate the Ghee Hin with $17,447 on behalf of the Sultan of Perak.
The Second Larut Wars took place in 1865 and was sparked off by a gambling quarrel in June of that year between members of the two opposing secret societies. The Hai San members took 14 Ghee Hin as prisoners, 13 of whom were killed. The 14th escaped to inform his clan and the the Ghee Hin retaliated by attacking the Hai San village, razing it to the ground and killing 40 men in the process. The battle continued back and forth and spread to Province Wellesley and the island of Penang and other secret societies joined the fray. Both sides, exhausted, finally came to terms. An official inquiry took place and both the Hai San and Ghee Hin societies were fined $5,000 each for violating the peace of Penang and their leaders, banished.
By around 1870 there were a combined total of about 40,000 Hakka and Cantonese mine workers in the Larut district and the mining areas between the two groups were near to each other. It is this proximity that might explain how the next battle began.
The Third Larut War erupted in 1872 over a scandal involving the Ghee Hin leader and the wife of a nephew of the Hai San leader, Chung Keng Quee. Upon discovery, the adulterous couple was caught, tortured, put into a pig basket (Chinese:豬籠) and thrown into a disused mining pond where they drowned. Revenging the death of their leader, the Ghee Hin had 4,000 professional fighting men (imported from China via Penang) attack the Hai Sans and for the first time, the Hai Sans were driven out of Larut. About 10,000 Hai San men sought scantuary in Penang. In months, the Hai Sans, supported by Ngah Ibrahim recovered their Matang and Larut mines. At this time, Raja Abdullah a claimant to the throne of Perak and an enemy of Ngah Ibrahim, took sides against the Hai Sans and Ngah Ibrahim and the wars between the Chinese miners transformed into civil war involving the Malay chiefs of Perak.
The Fourth Larut War occurred in 1873, merely a year after the previous battle. Weeks after the Hai Sans regained Larut, the Ghee Hin, supported by Raja Abdullah, counter-attacked with arms and men from Singapore and China. Ngah Ibrahim's properties in Matang were destroyed. Local Malay residents were also killed and their property, destroyed. Trouble spread to Krian, Pangkor and Dindings. The quarrelling Malay chiefs who had taken sides in the Larut Wars were now alarmed at the disorder created by the Chinese miners and secret societies. The Straits Settlement Penang Chinese seeing their investments destroyed in the Larut Wars sought intervention form British. Over 40,000 Chinese from the Go-Kuan and Si-Kuan were engaged in the fratricidal war involving the Perak royal family. Raja Muda Abdullah seized the Perak throne from Sultan Ismail to become the new Sultan of Perak.
Things were increasingly getting out of hand and chaos was proving bad for the Malays, Chinese and British. The need to restore law and order in Perak gave cause for new British policy concerning intervention in the affairs of the Malay States and resulted in the Treaty of Pangkor. Documents were signed on 20 January 1874 aboard the ship The Pluto at Pangkor Island to settle the Chinese dispute, clear the Sultan succession dispute and pave the way for the acceptance of British Residency - Captain Speedy was appointed to administer Larut as assistant to the British Resident. Chung Keng Quee was one of the two main signatories to the treaty known as the Pangkor Engagement entered into aboard the H.M.S. Pluto at Pangkor Island by twenty-six headmen of the Chinese Secret Societies (See Chung Keng Quee - Petition). Chung Keng Quee and Chin Ah Yam, leaders of the Hai San and Ghee Hin, respectively, were enobled by the British with the title of Kapitan China (華人甲必丹 or the leader of the Chinese community) and the town of Larut was renamed Taiping ("太平" in Chinese, meaning “everlasting peace”) as a confirmation of the new state of truce. Three days afterwards, Chung Keng Quee was appointed a member of the Pacification Commission headed by Captain S. Dunlop and Messrs. Frank Swettenham and W. A. Pickering, whose terms of reference, among others, was to arrange for an amicable settlement relating to the Larut tin mines - The Commissioners after due investigation and deliberation decided to hand the mines in Klian Pauh (Taiping) over to the Hai Sans and the mines in Klian Bharu (Kamunting) to the Ghee Hins.
Kapitan Chung Keng Quee was appointed a member of the State Council of Perak (there were 6 members of the council, four Malays and two Chinese) which held its first meeting at Kuala Kangsar on 10th September, 1877. His magnanimity is manifestly clear from the Council Minutes of Perak in "Papers on Malay Subjects" by R. J. Wilkinson, F. M. S. (Federation of Malay States) Government Press, Kuala Lumpur, 1908.
[edit] CHUNG KENG QUEE'S BUSINESS
In 1889, after the Pangkor settlement of 1874, Hugh Low gave over the Larut and Kurau opium, gambling, spirits, pawnbroking and tobacco farms to Khoo Thean Tek and Chung Keng Quee.
Chung Keng Quee and his friends and relatives made up one of three similar syndicate groups that dominated the Penang Opium Farm.
[edit] CHUNG KENG QUEE THE MAN
In the absence of Malayan citizenship laws during that time, Kapitan Chung Keng Quee occasionally visited his home village in China.
In commemoration of the birthday of his mother, Madam Lai, Chung Keng Quee founded and endowed a big scholarship fund for poor Chinese scholars preparing themselves for the time-honoured civil service examinations.
When the Lim Ancestral Temple building on Beach Street was completed in 1866, the Kew Leong Tong (Hall of Nine Dragons) Lim Kongsi, one of the three Lim Clan Associations in Penang, moved its office there. The address was 234 Beach Street. Later, Ah Quee Street was established when Kapitan Chung Keng Quee donated his Beach Street shophouse to be demolished to create the street that bears his name. Ah Quee Street runs beside 164 Beach Street which also happens to be the longest shophouse in Penang. (Source: Timothy Tye)
Chung Keng Quee was a principle donor to the Haichu-yu Toh Peh Kong Temple (1865 and 1868) and became prominent president of Penang Chinese Town Hall (1881-1883), Guangdong and Tingchou Cemeteries (1885 and 1901) and Kek Lok Si (1906).
The Kwantung hui-kuan (Cantonese Association) along Temple Street in Taiping was founded in 1887 by Chung Keng Kooi and others as an association of people from Kuangtung (Canton) province in South China.
On March 5, 1888, an institute was opened for the recreation and general convenience of European mechanicel engineers. For some time membership was confined exclusively to engineers and mechanics but was so popular that before long the regulations were altered so as to include deck officers, and certain longshoremen. The growth and development of the institute proceeded so rapidly that larger buildings were soon required, and, by arrangement with Kapitan Chung Keng Quee, a new two storey headquarters building was at the junction of Leith and Farquhar streets. Upon the staircase was a beautiful stained-glass window presented by Chung Keng Quee, and bearing the inscription, "Erected by Captain Cheng Kheng Kwi, Perak and Pinang, 1901". Near at hand was a portrait of the donor.
In 1893, Chung Keng Quee, already a millionaire, built a Chinese school in Penang, for all the Chinese children irrespective of their dialects.
In 1894, Chung Keng Quee hosted in his gardens, in the name of Vice Consul Chang Pi Shih, a dinner to welcome Admiral Ting and the Chinese Imperial Fleet of warships that he commanded.
Chung Keng Quee founded the Tseng Lung Association in Taiping and Gopeng in 1895, and in the following year, in Penang. He was also appointed principal director of Ng Fook Hsu Yin in Penang.
In 1897 the British establishment tried to drum support for an India famine-relief drive. Penang millionaire and Deli Bank director Hsieh Yung-kuan, then Chinese vice-consul, contributed $200 and Chung Keng Kwee gave $300 more, completely dwarfing His Excellency the Governor who managed only $100. When another campaign was launched in March 1900, Chung Keng Quee is reported to have handed over $15,000 to assure the effort's success.
In March 1901 Chung Keng Quee and several other members of the Hakka Associations in Penang established an Educational Institution called Chong Wen She. The Educational Institution organized campaigns to encourage the Chinese in Penang to respect for education. The motto of the campaigns was "Jing Xi Zi Zhi" or to respect the words written on the paper. The Educational Institution established a free of charge private school for all the children irrespective of their dialects. The school also enrolled the locally born Chinese children with the intention of giving them a classical education so that they would not forget about their roots.
In Penang, Chung Keng Quee was the primary benefector of the Sea Pearl Tua Pak Kong Temple in Tanjung Tokong, Penang Chinese Town Hall, Kwangtung and Teochew Cemeteries, and the Kek Lok Si Temple.
On many other occasions he also contributed to various other charities including the War Relief Fund arising from the Franco-Annam war under the command of Viceroy Li Hung-chang.
For his many acts of greatness the Manchu Imperial Government conferred on him the title of "Mandarin, Second Rank" retrospectively for three generations. This meant that Kapitan Chung Keng Quee, his father, Chung Hsing Fah, and his grandfather, Chung Tung Lin, the last two posthumously, simultaneously became Mandarins of the Second Rank.
In Georgetown, Penang Chung Keng Quee became known as the city's great conoiseur of architecture. In 1893, Chung Keng Quee acquired two adjacent properties along Church Street on Penang Island. The first was the former headquarters of the Ghee Hin - the Hai San had ousted them in the 1890s. The second was a Chinese school, the Goh Hock Tong (or Ng Fook Tong in Cantonese) meaning Five Luck Villa. He offered the school an alternative site in Chulia Street, where a new building was completed on 1898.
Chung Keng Quee then converted the former Ghee Hin headquarters into his townhouse and office and named this, Hye Kee Chan, or Sea Remembrance Store. It has interior fittings including Victorian cast iron columns from Walter Macfarlane & Co of Glasglow (also known as The Saracen Foundry). Macfarlane was also responsible for the beautiful iron gates and fencing of the former Five Luck Villa building which was converted into a personal temple. Today, his home is open to the public, showcasing the lifestyle, customs and traditions of the Peranakans or Straits Chinese - an example of adaptive reuse.
Chung Keng Quee died as a very rich man in Penang by 1898, leaving behind very extensive real estate in Penang, Hongkong and Perak. Two streets in Penang were named after him, Keng Kwee Street and Ah Quee Street. Kapitan Chung Keng Quee had nine sons, the 4th and best known of whom was Chung Thye Phin.
Chung Keng Quee had two official wives, Lim Ah Chen and Tan Gek Im. They bore him 9 sons and 5 daughters.
Sons:
大昌 - da ch - Thye Cheong
大日 - da ri - Thye Jit
大養 - da yang - Thye Yong
大仁 - da ren - Thye Yen
大平 - da ping - Thye Phin (See Chung Thye Phin)
大金 - da jin - Thye Kim
大釁 - da xin - Thye Hin
大六 - da liu - Thye Phat?
大詳 - da xiang - Thye Chiong
Daughters: 連心 - lian xin - Lin Sim
連英 - lian ying - LinYing
歡艱 - huan jian - Huan Kang
秀英 - xiu ying - Siew Ying
鳳英 - feng ying - Hong Ying
Chung Keng Quee also had a child (Cheang Thye Gan) by a woman named Tye Thye
He was buried in the Chung Family Burial Plot in Mount Erskine purchased beforehand by himself and his daughter CHUNG Kang Neoh.
Lee Eng Kew (Ah Kew The Digger) named his book about Taiping and its historical figures, Yi Guo (which literally means “to move country”), words derived from the inscriptions on the grave of Chung Keng Quee.
[edit] Notes
[edit] Sources
THE KAPITAN SYSTEM - XI Sunday Gazette, June 19, 1960, By Wu Liu (pen name of Mr. C. S. Wong)
A gallery of Chinese kapitans. by Mr. C. S. Wong; Published in Singapore: Ministry of Culture, 1963. 114p. [DS596 Won]
Twentieth Century impressions of British Malaya: its history, people, commerce, industries, and resources, by Arnold Wright, Published 1908 - Page 130, 203, 252, 262, 508, 509, 568
Record of Meritous Deeds of the Chung Family, op. cit., pp. 9-12
"Miscellaneous Chronicles of Penang", Kuang, Kuo-hsiang op. cit., pp. 112-113
The Case of the Chinese in Penang, 1890s-1910s | SHINOZAKI Kaori, Ph.D. student
200 years of the Hakkas in Penang (檳城客家兩百年) By the Federation of Hakka Associations of Malaysia
Reveal the True Face of Secret Societies (揭開私會黨真面目) Written by Guo Rende (郭仁德) Published by the Malaysian Chinese Cultural Center
"The Luxuriant Tree" and "Chung Keng Kwee, the Hakka Kapitan" by CHUNG Yoon-Ngan (鄭永元)
Heritage Road named in honour of Chung Thye Phin by Sita Ram, Stories Of Yesteryear, The Ipoh Echo 16 March - 31 March 2006
Timothy Tye who has been researching Chung Keng Quee for AsiaExplorers and historian Khoo Salma Nasution
Honoured in Penang for his generosity [on philanthropist Chung Keng Kwee, 1849-1901]. The Star, December 6, 2001 by Catherine Chong
Chung Keng Quee Temple Doors Opened, The Star July 5, 2000
Help From China To Restore Chung Keng Quee Temple, The Star, November 8, 2002
Turning Chung Keng Quee Temple Into A Museum, The Star January 16, 2003
Restoration of Hai Kee Chan, The Star, Friday October 3, 2003
Kapitan’s great-grandson By CHOONG KWEE KIM, The Star Thursday September 9, 2004
Producer hopes to make movie on Kapitan Cina of Perak By CHOONG KWEE KIM, THE STAR
The Star Online > Features Saturday, September 21, 2002 Taiping revived
Lee Eng Kew (AH Kew The Digger), self-taught field researcher
66 Usahawan Malaysia (66 Malaysian Entrepreneurs) by Ashadi Zain, ISBN : 983-192-147-X Cerita 50 Mendiang Chung Keng Kwee
A History of Malaya by R.O. Winstedt Published in March 1935
The Chinese in Malaya by Victor Purcell C.M.C. Ph.D published in 1948
The Mandarin-Capitalists from Nanyang: Overseas Chinese Enterprise in the Modernisation of China... By Michael R. Godley Publisheed by Cambridge University Press Jul 25, 2002
Gangsters Into Gentlemen: The Breakup of Multiethnic Conglomerates and The Rise of A Straits Chinese Identity in Penang by Engseng Ho, Department of Anthropology, William James Hall, Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138, presented at The Penang Story International Conference 2002, 18-21 April 2002, The City Bayview Hotel, Penang, Malaysia - Organiseed by The Penang Heritage Trust & STAR Publications.
TANJONG, HILIR PERAK, LARUT AND KINTA -- THE PENANG-PERAK NEXUS IN HISTORY* by Prof. Emeritus Dato' Dr. Khoo Kay Kim, Department of History, University of Malaya
SEJARAH DAERAH DAN PEJABAT - LAMAN RASMI PEJABAT DAERAH LARUT MATANG DAN SELAMA SEJARAH DAERAH DAN PEJABAT - Perak State Government Website
Perak Tourist Information Centre, Ipoh City Council
Taiping Town Council
Will of Cheang Ah Quee 17 Jul 1894
Prose contains specific citations in source text which may be viewed in edit mode.
- ^ (Researched by his great grandson, Jeffery Seow)
[edit] External Links
- Chinese tin mining in Larut, Perak Malaya
- Lifestyle of the rich and famous
