Jalan Wong Ah Fook
is a familiar main road in Johor Baru but who was Wong Ah Fook?
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Wong Ah Fook, an eminent
pioneer in Johor |
Wong was a key
personality in Johor history who had close links with the Johor sultan and
established himself in building construction before gaining success as an
influential entrepreneur.
As a carpenter-turned-builder,
Wong is credited for building the magnificent Istana Besar or Grand Palace, Istana
Zahariah, Balai Zahariah and the
Johor Baru Prison, among other shops and buildings.
Wong Fook Kee,
better known as Wong Ah Fook or simply Wong Fook, came from a distinguished
Taishan family in Yanjincun.
At that time,
the warring struggle for land and resources between the Cantonese and Hakka around
the Pearl Delta, made it difficult for Wong to improve his future. So in 1854, 17-year old Wong left home to
seek his fortune in a distant land.
Thousands of
Chinese immigrants or singkeh,
desperate for a better life, arrived in Nanyang or Southern Seas, in the 19th
century.
Wong suffered the same fears
and anxieties, the same hopes and aspirations as other immigrants, but he
survived while many perished. Every
immigrant was to find his own path to wealth and while Wong had courage and
fortitude, he was also a genius in turning opportunities into profits.
Wong was not a
coolie or a merchant and with only a basic education, he was also neither
ignorant nor uninformed.
When Wong chose
to be apprenticed to a man in the woodworking business, his future livelihood
was literally in his hands. His ability
to turn his carpentry skills into a construction business proved that he also
had good entrepreneurial skills.
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Facade of the Grand Palace with a view of the
stairs which leads directly into the throne room
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He then obtained
the benevolent patronage of Hoo Ah Kay, a fellow Cantonese nicknamed, Whampoa,
who had a successful business as a ships’ chandler.
Whampoa who spoke English well, moved
confidently in European social circles and it was he who introduced Wong to
Temenggong Sri Maharaja Abu Bakar, a Johor ruler who was open to all Chinese
and had plans to start a wave of modern development.
By then Wong had
earned a reputation as the building contractor who completed two warehouses for
Paterson & Simons, one of the European companies that developed out of an
older firm founded by William Whemys Ker in 1828.
Among the first Europeans to set up business
in Singapore, Ker was a friend and business associate of the Temenggongs of
Johor, who had warehouses at Havelock Road, by the Singapore River.
Wong later met the
Maharaja’s consort, Maharani Fatimah, the former Wong Ah Gew, who was also a Cantonese. The Maharaja had such a high regard for her
that he named the Muar district, Bandar Maharani, in her honour and when he
attained the title of Sultan in 1885, she was bestowed the title of
Sultanah.
Traditionally, Chinese who
share the same surname are regarded as being related to each other and Sultanah
Fatimah addressed Wong as “older brother” and treated him as her kinsman.
Besides
Chinese immigrants who arrived to open up Johor for the cultivation of pepper
and gambier in the kangchu system,
Europeans and wealthy Arabs came to invest here.
When James Meldrum saw the resources from the
Johor jungles, he established the first European enterprise here in a steam sawmill on the left bank of Sungai Segget in 1860.
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The building which houses the
Kwong Siew Heritage Gallery
at Jalan Siu Nam was once
the Cantonese clan house
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The
Maharaja appointed a European architect to draw up plans to build a grand
palace and entrusted the task of building to Wong in 1864.
He was still a young man and receiving such a
major contract – the biggest construction job in its day – proved that Wong had
progressed to the point where he could read complex architectural plans and carry
out technical instructions.
Building
materials were brought in from various sources: ceramic tiles from Europe,
marble from Italy, roof tiles from China, granite from Pulau Ubin and fired
bricks from Singapore while fine hardwood timber from the Johor jungles was
supplied by Meldrum’s sawmill.
Construction was almost complete when the Maharaja instructed Wong to
buy soft furnishings like silks, brocade, damasks and fine linen, for the
palace from China.
Wong,
then 28 years old, felt it was time to take a wife so he also planned to return
to his village for this. All the wedding
arrangements were made with the family of his bride-to-be, but on his way home,
he saw the devastation of war and how the dead laid where they had fallen. When Wong reached home, he made a decision to
postpone his wedding and used the money he had saved up to bury the dead.
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Datin Patricia Lim with some of the
books she authored |
With
his future father-in-law’s consent, the wedding was postponed to a more
auspicious date. Wong bought land dubbed
the Wan’an Cemetery, and gave the dead proper burials.
Wong then returned to Johor to complete the
Istana Besar on schedule and on New Year’s Day 1866, it was officially opened.
After
saving enough money, he returned to Taishan to marry his bride, Chew Yew, and
brought her to Singapore. In 1870, their
eldest son, Siu Nam, was born.
In
1892, Sultan Abu Bakar granted substantial blocks of land to Wong Ah Fook and
Lim Ah Siang. Lim’s land was at Stulang
while Wong’s land was called Jiu Soon Kang where his workshop was set up on
Jalan Meldrum, the road leading to the steam sawmill.
Three
parallel roads adjacent to Jalan Meldrum were named after his older sons, Siu
Nam, Siu Koon and Siu Chin. This area
became known as Kampong Ah Fook.
For 40
years, Wong was president of the Johor Baru Kwong Siew Wai Kuan, the Cantonese
clan association with its clan house at Jalan Siu Nam. This building now houses the Johor Baru Kwong
Siew Heritage Gallery.
Further insights
into Wong and his contributions to Johor’s early development is recorded in Wong Ah Fook - Immigrant, Builder and
Entrepreneur (Times Editions 2002) and
Johor – Local History, Local Landscapes 1855 to 1957 (Straits Times Press
2009), books by professional historian, Datin Patricia Lim Pui Huen, the great-grand-daughter
of Wong Ah Fook.
A version of this was published in the May 2016 issue of The Iskandarian
