Chew Boon Lay (b. 1851 or 1852- d. 2 June, 1933, Singapore) was one of Singapore's early pioneers and a successful businessman. He bought large tracts of land in Jurong on which he cultivated pepper and gambier, and later rubber. He also founded the Ho Ho biscuit factory. The Boon Lay housing estate and its Mass Rapid Transit station is named after him.
Early Life
Chew was born to a poor peasant family in the small village of Tong Loon Seah, Kuan Khow (present day Changchow), off Amoy, China, in 1851 or 1852. His father died when he was 13 or 14 years old. An older brother had by this time left for Bangkok, Thailand, to join an uncle who owned a sundry shop and some land. When Chew was in his late teens, his mother too passed away and Chew left for Bangkok to join his uncle. For the next three years, Chew was a slave to his uncle- a plight he never expected to be in when he accepted his uncle's offer of help. Chew attended to household chores and also tended to customers at the sundry shop until it closed in the evening.
On one occasion, Chew's uncle accused him of stealing 600 ticals that had been kept under a mattress. Although Chew pleaded innocence, his uncle was determined to hand him over to the police. Desperate for a way out, Chew decided try his luck on a stake in the Wah Whay lottery (a game with 36 characters, for which the winning stake received 30 times the amount of the stake) the following day. He borrowed one tical from his aunt for this. He won 900 ticals, which he then used to pay the loan of one tical from his aunt and 600 ticals to his uncle for an offense he did not commit. His uncle wanted the rest of his winnings, claiming that Chew's elder brother (who had died by this time) owed him 400 ticals. The debt was not known to Chew previously and he did not succumb to his uncle's demands. He decided to leave his uncle's household taking nothing with him except his remaining 299 ticals.
Business
Chew then worked as a clerk on board a Chinese junk that traded between Bangkok and Singapore. In addition to his salary, he was later given a small cargo space, which he used to conduct his personal trade in consumer goods. His barter trade grew and his business network expanded, and he eventually settled in Singapore.
Chew believed that a viable business was one that dealt in daily necessities. He started a soap manufacturing business, and thereafter a biscuit factory in 1898. Taking the name of Ho Ho Biscuit Factory, Chew's biscuit business contributed to his early fortune. Around 1931, Ho Ho established a branch in Batavia (present-day Jakarta) and Chew sent his eighth son, Chew Hock Hin, to head the operation. Chew also established a brick-making factory on Pulau Tekong around 1912, but sold it off shortly when he found the mortality rate of his workers high.
Seeing value in land ownership, Chew bought acres of marshland and mosquito-infested jungle in Jurong. The land was cleared and gambier and pepper plantations were started. The decline of the gambier industry in the early 1900s led to diminishing values of estates in Jurong. Chew then turned to cultivating rubber as it was in great demand. It was in rubber that Chew made his biggest fortune. Chew also set aside an orchard in his Jurong estate to cultivate papayas, durians and mangosteens among other fruits.
In the late 1940s and 1950s, the colonial government in Singapore acquired large portions of land in Jurong that belonged to Chew. This led to the growth of Boon Lay village. The village had about 420 people living there in the early 1960s.
Today, the Boon Lay housing estate off Jurong is named after Chew Boon Lay. A Mass Rapid Transit station and a school are also named after him.
Family
Chew married Ong Cheng Neo (1864-1942), a Peranakan from Malacca. While Chew spoke Amoy Hokkien to his children, his wife spoke a patois of Baba Malay (largely Malay with Hokkien words), though she picked up Amoy Hokkien quickly. Chew was Confucian and practiced rites and rituals that were based on Confucian values.
He had eight sons and four daughters. As the family grew, so did the family compounds. The family lived in Oxley Road, and then Hillside Drive, before eventually moving to a compound on Devonshire Road that comprised four adjoining houses. There was one large house, known as the tau choo (which means 'big house' in Hokkien) and which was the main unit for the patriarch and the eldest son's family, and three smaller houses for the rest of his sons and their families. Other than his business, Chew's time was spent with his family. He had no social life beyond the family, and this is perhaps the reason why he was relatively unknown in the community.
Chew passed away in 1933 and was buried at Bukit Brown cemetery. He left behind six sons, three daughters, six daughters-in-law, two granddaughters-in-law and twenty-four great grandchildren. In 2005, his descendents published a coffee-table book that detailed the patriarch's life and a family tree of about 700 descendants (spouses included).
Wife: Ong Cheng Neo.
Sons: Hock Seng, Hock Ann, Hock Hye, Hock San, Hock Chye, Hock Lee, Hock Leong, Hock Hin.
Daughters: Gek Neo, Siew Neo, Kim Neo, Gin Neo.
Author
Dinesh Sathisan
References
Boon Lay Citizens Consultative Committee. (2002). Boon Lay: The Town, The People. Singapore: Boon Lay Citizens' Consultative Committee.
(Call no.: RSING q959.57 BOO)
Dunlop, Peter. (2000). Street Names of Singapore. Singapore: Who's Who Publications.
(Call no.: RSING 959.57 DUN)
Funeral Announcement [Microfilm 1476]. (1933, June 6). The Straits Times, p.10.
Ong, Chwee Im; Chew, Kheng Chuan & Chew, Evelyn. (2002). Chew Boon Lay: A Family Traces its History. Singapore: The Compiler.
(Call no.: RSING 929.2095957 CHE
Savage, Victor R. & Yeoh, Brenda S. A. (2004). Toponymics: A Study of Singapore Street Names. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press.
(Call no.: RSING 915.9570014 SAV)
Urban Redevelopment Authority. (1996). Boon Lay & Pioneer Planning Area. Singapore: The Authority.
(Call no.: RSING 711.4095957 SIN)
The information in this article is valid as at 2009 and correct as far as we can ascertain from our sources. It is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete history of the subject. Please contact the library for further reading materials on the topic.
