Lee Kong Chian

Lee was born in Furong Village in Nan'an, Fujian, His father was Lee Kok Chuan (simplified Chinese: 李国专; traditional Chinese: 李國專; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Lí Kok-choan).

Lee received his early education in private schools in his hometown. In 1903, at the age of 10, he came to Singapore, then a British colony, to join his father. He studied at the defunct Anglo-Tamil School, and Chung Cheng High School.

Lee went to northern China in 1909 to complete his education under a scholarship by the British. In China, Lee studied at Chi Nan College in and later the Railway and Mining College, which was one of the top colleges in China at that time, and a forerunner of the present-day Southwest Jiaotong University and North China University of Science and Technology.

Upon returning to Singapore, Lee worked as a teacher at Tao Nan School and as a translator at a Chinese-language newspaper company. He also worked as an assistant field surveyor with the Public Works Department. In 1915, Lee joined the China Guohua Company owned by Tan Kah Kee, and became Tan's protégé. He was promoted to the manager of the Tan Kah Kee Rubber Company in 1917. Three years later, he married Tan's daughter, Tan Ai Leh (simplified Chinese: 陈爱礼; traditional Chinese: 陳愛禮; pinyin: Chén Àilǐ; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tân Ài-lé).

Seven years later, Lee set up his own rubber smoking house in Muar, Johor, Malaya, which became the Nam Aik 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". He became one of the richest men in the region, with the Lee Rubber Company becoming a multimillion-dollar business which he started in 1931. His brother George Lee joined him at the company. Besides establishing himself as a rubber tycoon, Lee diversified his business interests to include sawmills and the trading of pineapple, coconut oil, biscuits and raw material. He also set up Lee Pineapple, Lee Produce, Lee Sawmills, Lee Printing and Lee Biscuits.

Lee also went into banking. He was vice-chairman of Chinese Commercial Bank (CCB) and played a central role in facilitating the merger of the Oversea-Chinese Bank, the Ho Hong Bank and the CCB to form the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) in 1932, becoming the largest bank in Singapore. Lee served OCBC as vice-chairman from 1932, and assumed chairmanship of OCBC in 1938, holding this post until his death in 1967.

Like Tan Kah Kee, Lee poured his wealth into education and other philanthropic efforts. He set up the Lee Foundation in Singapore and Malaya in 1952 and 1960 respectively. In 1965, the Lee Foundation Limited was established in Hong Kong.

Lee also spearheaded free public library services for Singapore when he donated S$375,000 through the Lee Foundation to allow the Singapore Government to build the Old National Library building at Stamford Road. The old building was eventually demolished and replaced by a much larger new building, a project that also received substantial financial backing from the foundation. The new National Library building consisted of a lending library (Central Public Library) located at basement one and the National Library/Lee Kong Chian Reference Library (previously known as the National Reference library), occupies the 7th to 13th floors, was named in his honour.