About TEO Lee 张理
I am born in 1833 and considered by Sir Song Ong Siang to be the first Chinese male born in the new British colony of Singapore. " The First Hundred Years of Chinese in Singapore". I was a pepper and gambir (rubber) trader.One of the earliest "sons of the soil" was Teo Lee, who was born in Singapore about 1833. His father came from China in a junk shortly after the foundation of the Settlement, and was for many years a gambier and pepper planter somewhere in the vicinity of Bukit Tunggal. Teo Lee started life as a cloth pedlar. Later, he opened a shop in Beach Road under the chop Tiang Bee, dealing in mercer and piece goods and as general commission agent, and gradually built up an extensive trading connection with Trengganu, Kelantan, Bali and Ampenan. Like many of the early settlers, Teo Lee invested his savings in landed property, and at the time of his death he was a considerable landowner . He was a great friend of the late Sultan Abubakar of Johore. His two sons, Messrs. Teo Eng Hock and Teo Bah Tan, are well-known merchants and rubber planters and dealers in Singapore. His widow, Tan Poh Neo, is the granddaughter of Tan Hong Khuay, who was mayor of Muntok. The eldest daughter of Mr. Teo Lee was married to Lim Peng N guan , and became the mother of Mr. Lim Nee Soon.
