Leong Fee

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Leong Fee, also known as Liang Pi Joo, was born in 1857 in Guangdong, China. He moved to Malaya in 1876, first arriving in Penang and then settling in Perak, where he made his fortune in tin mining. In 1902 he opened a tin mine in Tambun, and by the next year Tambun held the world record for tin production. Leong Fee was a successful tin miner, businessman, and philanthropist.

He also held several public roles. He served as a visiting Justice for Kinta in 1892, was a Penang state senator, and sat on the Perak State Council. He became the first Chinese member of the Federal Legislative Council in 1909. From 1902 to 1908 he was the Chinese Vice-Consul to Penang.

Leong Fee founded a club in Ipoh in 1893. His son, Leong Yin Khean (also called Liang En-Chuen), carried on his father’s support for the lodge after Leong Fee’s death in 1912. He built a home on Leith Street around the 1900s, which today is owned by the Christian Brothers and leased to an art school, Akademi Seni Equator. He also married the daughter of Hsieh Yung-kuan, a wealthy philanthropist and former Chinese Vice-Consul to Penang. The famous Malaysian businessman Leong Sin Nam once worked in his tin mine.

Leong Fee died in 1912, at about 54 or 55 years old.