Lim Boon Keng (; 18 October 1869 – 1 January 1957) was a Peranakan physician who advocated social and educational reforms in Singapore in the early 20th-century. He also served as the president of Xiamen University in China between 1921 and 1937. Early life and education Lim was born on 18 October 1869 in Singapore, Straits Settlements as the third generation of a Peranakan with ancestry from Haicheng Town, Longhai City, Fujian Province based from his grandfather Lim Mah Peng who first immigrated to Penang, Malaya in 1839, where he married a Straits-born Chinese woman. Lim Mah Peng would later move to Singapore where his only son, Lim Thean Geow (), the father of Lim Boon Keng, was born. Lim studied at Raffles Institution. However, the death of his parents during his childhood inspired him to pursue a career in medicine. In 1887, Lim became the first Singaporean to receive a Queen's Scholarship. He gained admission to the University of Edinburgh and graduated in 1892 with a first-class honors degree in medicine. Career In 1895, Lim became a member of the Legislative Council of the Straits Settlements in Singapore. The following year, he headed a Commission of Inquiry into the sources of poverty in Singapore. He was also a Justice of the Peace and a member of the Chinese Advisory Board. Lim founded the Philomatic society and published the first Chinese-language magazine in the Straits Settlements in 1897 with Song Ong Siang. They were later joined by Dr. Wu Lien-teh as a fellow editor. In the same year, he also campaigned against the wearing of queues among Chinese men, with the intention of toppling the Qing dynasty in China. In 1898, Lim co-founded the Tian Nan Xin Bao (天南新报) with Khoo Sook Yuen. In 1899, Lim co-founded the Singapore Chinese Girls' School (SCGS) with his friend, Song Ong Siang, to facilitate the education of Chinese women living in the Straits Settlements. (Chinese girls were not encouraged to be educated before the 20th century, thus many were illiterate.) The next year, Lim founded the Straits Chinese British Association and later became its president. As a member of the Legislative Council, Lim wanted opium banned so he formed the Anti-Opium Society. However, opium was not banned until 1943 during the Japanese occupation of Singapore. The British reasoned that imposing a ban on opium would mean that the government would lose a source