Generations of connections

Lim Ewe Lee (1894-1957): Chief Clerk of the

Chinese Protectorate who had extensive

connections within the civil service in Penang.

TEIK EE was admitted into the Wellesley Primary School in January, 1929, when he was aged 5 years and 10 months. Being very young, he was rather nervous when he was ushered, together with other boys, into a room on the top floor on his first day in school. He therefore constantly went to the window nearest to him to see if Madam Cheng Sim, who very kindly undertook to take him to and from school, and I were there. For six months he was in Primary IC after which he was sent to Primary IA for another six months in which form he was awarded a prize for good conduct. After a year in Std I he was transferred on promotion to Std II, Francis Light School, whither he went on a rickshaw. Our quarters were then at Lorong Salamat. He was for a year in Std II; at the final examination in Std III, he was second boy for which he received a prize and was recommended by his teacher, Wong Ah Gnow, for double promotion to Std V. I consulted Tan Kiar Lew ([who was to become] the Headmaster of Westlands School) and Mrs G R Phipps (formerly a lady teacher in Wellesley Primary School and now [in the late 1940s] a pensioner) whom I met at the Junior Civil Service Association as to the advisability or otherwise of accepting the tempting offer. Kiar Lew replied in the affirmative but Mrs Phipps said that in her experience some boys who received such promotion turned out to be good while in other cases progress was retarded in the upper classes. I sifted the pros and cons and came to the conclusion that the Headmaster-to-be and the teacher would not have made the recommendation if the boy had not merited it. He went to Std V under Cheah Teong Lip. On the second day of the first moon I was surprised to see him crying and I asked him the reason. He said, “I don’t want to remain in Std V; I want to go down to Std IV.” He added he was spanked for not knowing elementary algebra as this subject was taught without reference to any book. I told him to see what kind of book the teacher was using so as to buy a copy. To me algebra was the worse subject. I read the examples given and taught him as far as I was able to. He got no further spanking and at the first term examination he came out with credit in algebra. The teacher was surprised and queried, “Did you copy?” Three months later I asked him if he would like to go down to Std IV and he smilingly said no. He was absent at the second term examination on account of illness. At the third and final examination he was placed, to the satisfaction of Teong Lip and myself, in the 11th position out of 144 boys and second in his class, Std VD. On 22nd January, 1934, he went to Std VI, Penang Free School. [Underlines in the text by editors.]

The anecdote above was written by my grandfather, Lim Ewe Lee (1894-1957), who retired as Chief Clerk of the Chinese Protectorate, Penang, when it was part of the Straits Settlements. It was about the primary schooldays of my father, Dr Lim Teik Ee (1923-2014), who was a well-known dentist in Penang. It is very revealing in many ways:

Ch’ng Tatt Teik: Founder of Union School
and one of the two founders of the
Hokkien Hooi Aun Association.

• First, many of those mentioned in the anecdote had some bearing on the lives of the Westlands Primary Class of 1965. Tan Kiar Lew was one of the first Asian headmasters of Westlands School. He lived in the area and sent many of this children and grandchildren to WPS. Wong Ah Gnow served as headmaster of WPS until 1960 when he was succeeded by K Balram. A Mrs Phipps, with her daughter, operated a three-class kindergarten at one of the small roads off Victoria Green Road. The last house of a block, the double-story link house was next to Union Primary School or Heap Hoe. There was access to its canteen via an opening in the fence. Among the students who studied there were Lim Chien Cheng, Yeo Guan Khim and me (from WPS), and Ooi Teong Siew (Wellesley). Later in Free School, a few of us became friends with Ch’ng Oon Tian who was and still is a keen photographer. Unknown to us, he had spent his primary school days at Union Primary nearby. It was a school his grandfather, Ch’ng Tatt Teik, founded. Ch’ng was also one of the two founders of the Hokkien Hooi Aun Association. At that time, in the early 1960s, Oon Tian’s aunt, Ch’ng Aun Jean, was the headmistress of Union Primary.
• Second, the civil service members, via the Junior Civil Service Association, had a lot of interaction – to the point of asking each other about intimate family matters like school promotion of their children.
• Third, corporeal punishment was treated as a matter of course. No parent would rush to school to complain or contact the media, as long as the motive of the teacher was sincere, with the welfare of the child in mind. 
• Fourth, the school system was very different then: (a) students were eligible for double promotion on the recommendation of teachers, (b) Free School admitted children for Standard VI, (c) one could enter school at “5 years 10 months”, and (d) students could be transferred from one school to another. We have been told this is part of a feeder school system for the Penang Free School. More needs to be done to uncover the system. 

© Lim Siang Jin 2018

Never caught

I HAVE a confession. I’ve been holding a little secret for more than 50 years. But it’s time for me to disclose it and get the incident off my chest.

Do you know that around the present-day fenced perimeter of the Westlands Centre for Sports Excellence is a 10 feet-wide tarred walkway? It wasn’t always tarred in the past. In fact, prior to 1963, the Westlands Primary School fence was right up till the edge of the drain that ran along Victoria Green Road and Khaw Sim Bee Road.

Then at the end of 1962, the Public Works Department called a tender to construct a walkway. In the process, the school’s perimeter fence was moved inwards.

The construction of the walkway began in January 1963. At that time, I was in Standard Four and I would be walking home every day after school. All the way from Westlands School to Seang Tek Road. Every day, I could see workers constructing the walkway, dumping gravel and then finally pouring a layer of asphalt before a mini-roller was used to compress and flatten it. A nice, dark, flattened surface around the school.

And there I was, daily, digging the heels of my shoes into the still-soft asphalt when I felt that no-one was watching. A long line of holes in the asphalt, several feet apart. The next day, the holes would have been repaired and I took delight in digging in my shoes’ heels again. This went on for days and miraculously, nobody caught on that it was little me, little 10-year-old innocent me, that was the culprit.

Then Chinese New Year arrived on the 25th of January. The school closed for several days. When I returned after the holiday break, I found that the asphalt had hardened. I could no longer make holes in the walkway. Oh well, end of my little pleasure. And that is my little secret of 55 years, now revealed. What a naughty boy.

@ Quah Seng Sun 2018

Westlands’ Northam Road connection

LET ME relate to you the story of the Northam Road Government English School and how Westlands School could trace its roots to this government English school and inter alia, to the much respected Harold Cheeseman after whom the Cheeseman Hall at Westlands was named.

For a long while, I had just a passing interest in this government school. The only information I had previously was that it was located at 11 Northam Road, Penang. However, right after my friends and I began this blog on Westlands School, I realised the historical connection between the two institutions. I needed to find out where exactly was this Number 11 Northam Road, especially since it didn't show at all in the present maps of George Town.

The Northam Road Government English School (NRGES, left), with 400 students, was run by Harold Cheeseman for a few months in 1922 before he became Penang's Inspector of Schools. It operated for slightly over a decade after that. In 1933-34, the students were moved to Hutchings School before ending up in the new Westlands School in 1935. The premises of the NRGES were occupied by the Shih Chung Branch School from 1938. It is now in a dilapidated state (right) awaiting its next renewal.

I started searching elsewhere and Hey Presto! guess what, here it is. Number 11 Northam Road is now where the Shih Chung Branch School once operated from. Realising that it was once the Shih Chung Branch School stirred in me an old memory. I remember that 10 years ago, I had written something about this school in my personal blog. I had even mentioned in passing that it was also used as a government English school. But it escaped me that it was THE Northam Road Government English School. It is only lately that I've managed to tie almost all the loose ends together.

What more do we know about this building? Its history is known but it is incomplete. Originally belonging to the two Cheah brothers, Tek Soon and Tek Thye, the building was bought up by Tye Kee Yoon. Between 1908 and 1920, the building was used for various purposes. At the start, it was used as the Chinese Consulate but later, the Tye family leased it out for use as the Bellevue Boarding House. In 1910, RN Brunel-Norman took over the boarding house and called it as Raffles-by-the-Sea, or simply Raffles for short. However, due to constant confusion arising from the hotel bearing a name similar to that of the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, Brunel-Norman was forced to re-name his establishment as Hotel Norman in Sept 1912. He was to continue the hotel business for another two years. By Dec 1914, having made up his mind to leave Penang, he put up his hotel under the auctioneer's hammer. Maybe Brunel-Norman was not able to find a buyer because within a few months, that is, in 1915, the building had entered a new phase as the P'i Joo Girls School until 1920.

According to Dr Kim Phaik Lah, former Associate Professor at the School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang: “P’i Joo Girls School was a pioneer Chinese girls school in Penang. Established in 1915, its three principals were educators from China. At its height, there were more than 250 students. The school, however, closed down in 1920. The same year, Fuchien Girls School (now Bin Hua or Penang Chinese Girls High School), was founded. Mdm Chee Yuet Wah, the first principal of Fuchien Girls, was a student of P'i Joo Girls.”

This report below comes from the Penang Heritage Trust website:

The once-stately mansion of Goh Chan Lau, which means “Five-Storey Villa”, was built by the brothers Cheah Tek Soon (Xie Deshun) and Cheah Tek Thye (Xie Detai). Cheah Tek Soon’s daughter Cheah Liew Bee (Xie Liumei) was married to Goh Say Eng (Wu Shirong), a fervent supporter of Sun Yat Sen. It was said that Goh Say Eng had persuaded the Cheah family to sell off the villa to financially fuel the revolutionary activities of Sun Yat Sen.

In 1908, the villa passed into the hands of Tye Kee Yoon (Dai Xiyun), the Chinese Consul in Penang, who turned it into the Chinese Consulate. After the 1911 Revolution, his son Tye Phey Yuen (Dai Shuyuan) became the first Consul of Republican of China in Penang.

In 1915, the brothers Leong Eng Kean (Liang Enquan) and Leong Yin Kean (Liang Yingquan) rented the upper floor of the bungalow as the premises for the P’i Joo Girls’ School, which was forced to shut down when the Education Bill of 1920 was put into effect.

The Shih Chung Branch School, founded in 1938, occupied these premises until 1994.

I shall now attempt to fill in this blank with the unknown history of Goh Chan Lau from 1920 to 1938 but first, I shall reproduce this excerpt from a news report in The Straits Times of 19 Aug 1922:

PENANG SCHOOLS: Solving the Accommodation Difficulty

The Government has now taken over the fine-looking and commodious building, No 11 Northam Road, that was formerly the Hotel Norman and more recently, a Chinese Girls' School, on a three years' lease, in order to provide accommodation for children for whom no room can be found in the other schools at the present time. This arrangement, we are informed, is only a temporary one pending erection of permanent Government buildings.

This new establishment which is styled "Government English School" has accommodation for 600 children if necessary, but if that number is admitted arrangements will have to be made for extra teachers, etc. At present the number in attendance totals about 400 and there is, we hear, accommodation for 30 or 40 more children. The boys are all in the primary classes and under the charge of Mr HR Cheeseman, formerly of the Free School, who is as everyone knows a fine disciplinarian, and keen sportsman and indefatigable volunteer. The site and building are admirably suited to the purpose, indeed a better location in Town could not have been selected. The house stands in a large compound, one side of which is sufficiently spacious for drilling and even a football match.

The Towkays from whom the place is leased to Government are Messrs Thye Chee Tean and Tye Shook Yuen, the executors of the estate of the late Mr Tye Kee Yoon, Chinese Consul in Penang. In his will the late Mr Tye Kee Yoon bequeathed certain sums for charitable and other purposes. The executors of his estate have consequently been able kindly to promise to subscribe $50 a month towards the school funds as long as the Government holds a lease from them, as a token of respect for the memory of the late Chinese Consul and in accordance with his wishes.

The Government, we learn, intends to erect new school buildings in Green Lane, and when these have been completed, in about a couple of years' time, the older boys in the Free School will be transferred to them, leaving the present buildings (i.e. the Free School) in Farquhar Street for the elementary classes. It is also under contemplation to erect a new school in Perak Road about a year hence which will also be devoted to elementary education. There will be sufficient playgrounds at these schools for the boys' recreation.

So you can see here the connection of Harold Cheeseman with the Northam Road Government English School. However, Cheeseman stayed with the school for just a mere five months as he was soon transferred to become the Settlement's Inspector of Schools. The Government English School used the 11 Northam Road premises right until the end of 1933. On 11 Dec 1933, the school organised its last annual prize giving ceremony, which was reported thus in the Malaya Tribune of 14 Dec 1933:

The Government English School, Northam Road, held its annual prize giving on Monday when a very creditable entertainment was staged by the pupils. 

Mrs O'Sullivan gave away the prizes, and was thanked by Mr Hamid Khan, the headmaster, who said that during the year work had commenced on a new school to be built at Westlands to take the place of the present school and it would be ready for occupation next year.

Besides recitations and action songs, Mr Tan Thean Seng's squad gave a fine exhibition of ju-jitsu and boxing. Five second-year Malay boys appeared in a short play entitled "Ja'afar and The Thief" and acquitted themselves with distinction, their enunciation being exceptionally good.

Despite Hamid Khan's confidence about the Westlands School being ready for occupation in 1934, we now know that the intake of new boys into Westlands School only began in 1935. During the one-year interim period between the Northam Road Government School closing at the end of 1933 and the Westlands School opening in 1935, the boys were transferred to Hutchings School to continue their education. This short news item in the Singapore Free Press And Mercantile Advertiser of 10 Mar 1934 related what happened:

NEW ENGLISH SCHOOL: $50,000 Scheme Launched in Penang

The Government are building a new Elementary English School at Westland (sic), Burmah Road. The approximate cost is to be $50,000. Work has been started and is expected to be finished by the end of December next. The school will have accommodation for 600 pupils. A cricket pitch, tennis courts, badminton courts, etc, will be laid on the site, which is seven and a half acres.

The new school will replace the Government English School at Northam Road, which is now empty, as the boys are transferred to Hutchings school.

After the Northam Road Government English School moved out, it was not known what exactly had become of the building in the next few years except that the executors of the estate of Tye Kee Yoon would have retaken control of the premises.

In Oct 1937, it was reported by the Malaya Tribune that the building was under-going demolition. Actually, the five-storey building was not being demolished but just under-going renovation work in preparation for its next phase as the premises of the new Shih Chung Branch School which was established in 1938. The Shih Chung Branch School has an equally interesting history but researching this must be someone else's project, not mine. I won't cover it here.

Below is the earliest image of the Westlands School that I could find, taken in February 1935:

© Quah Seng Sun 2018