1937 Board of Prefects

This image has been making the rounds on social media in recent days. No doubt, it has been circulating in connection with news that the prominent old warrior, Lim Kean Chye, died last Thursday on 08 June 2023 at a ripe old age. Some people had said the long retired lawyer was 105-years-old but The Malay Mail mentioned him being 103-years-old.

It would not be wrong to say that Lim Kean Chye would reach his 104th birthday come this December. He was born in 1919 which made him the contemporary of Lim Chong Eu who was born in the same year. Both the unrelated Lims studied at Penang Free School and in 1937 when the above picture was taken, Chong Eu was one of the senior prefects (he was seated on the far left) and Kean Chye, standing third from right, was also on the Board of Prefects although not a senior.

Some people also speculated that they were contemporaries of Wu Lien Teh as well, because Dr Wu was featured seated with the Prefects in this 1937 picture. But this speculation was wrong. It's true that Dr Wu (or Gnoh Lean Tuck) was the Head Boy in 1894 but it was only coincidental that Dr Wu was in this 1937 picture with the School Prefects. At that time, the famous doctor was still living in Shanghai and he moved back to Malaya two years later when his home there was destroyed by Japanese bombing. 

He made two visits to his alma mater, Penang Free School, in July 1937 when he was already 58-years-old. On his first visit, he gave a lecture to the boys and on the second visit, he demonstrated the dissection of a rabbit to the biology class. This picture was taken on one of the two occasions.

Due to the picture's ambiguous caption, there was also an assumption that the unnamed Headmaster in this picture was HI Saunders. Again, I have to clear up the wrong information. The Headmaster was Leslie W Arnold, seated in the centre beside Wu Lien Teh. Arnold was Headmaster of Penang Free School from 1934. He was evacuated to Singapore in 1941 when the Japanese bombed Penang and he never returned after the War. Seated on the other side of Arnold was Humphrey I Saunders, one of the three senior prefects of the School. 

Apart from Saunders who went on to Singapore after he left Penang Free School, it is interesting to note that the Head Prefect, Chiu Ban It, seated between Chong Eu and Dr Wu, was later to join the Anglican Church and became Vicar of the St Andrews Church in Singapore. In 1966, he was appointed as Bishop of Singapore and Malaysia. 

There are one or two other interesting characters in this picture which I may write briefly on, if I wish to return to this subject later but for now, this is it.

ADDENDUM: There are sceptics who doubt the authenticity of the first picture, claiming that the individuals appear too old to be Prefects. Some comments questioning the validity include: "Strange (that) most looking too old to be students/School Prefects??", "I don't (think) this is a Board of Prefect(s) but a kind of board of governors or trustees" and "A doctor said all look too old to be students...certainly Chong Eu, even Kean Chye." 

While everyone is entitled to their beliefs, I stand firm in presenting the undeniable facts. It would be highly improbable for well-known personalities like Lim Chong Eu, Chiu Ban It, Tan Ah Fee, Lim Kean Chye, Oh Kim Seng and the others to have coincidentally served together on a board of governors or trustees. 

(Note: while the Board of Governors was only constituted in January 1958, after the country's Independence a year earlier, the Board of Trustees was formed in September 1921 with members mainly selected from the Settlement Government and the British community in Penang.) 

The only plausible explanation is that they gathered during their time at school. To substantiate this claim, I offer concrete evidence in the form of an extract from the School Magazine of May 1938, which not only listed these individuals as members of the Board of Prefects in 1937 (the Prefects were also known as School Officers then) but also included their names in conjunction with the aforementioned picture.