Eu Tong Sen OBE RM (Chinese: 余東旋; 23 July 1877 – 11 May 1941) was a businessman in Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong during the late 19th and early 20th century.
His grandfather, He Song, a feng shui master, was originally from Jiangxi but moved to Foshan in Guangdong, China.
Eu Kong) became a Chinese immigrant from Foshan and went to Penang to work as a grocery shop assistant and later laid the foundation for his son's fortune by starting tin mining and other businesses.
His business partner was Chiu Tong Hin and his attorney was Grant Mackie of the Straits Trading Company.
However, with the sudden death of his father, he found himself, at only 13, heir to the family estates and tin mining businesses.
He moved to the home of R. Butler and lived there for two and a half years, taking private tuition in English from F. W. Harley.
He expanded his business empire in Singapore, Malaya and Hong Kong and, at 30, was one of the richest men in the region.
[3] He set up the Sang Woh Foundry and extended his business into the manufacture and export of tin-made items which he shipped to China and Southeast Asian countries.
[1] Aside from his involvement in the tin mining and rubber industries, Eu was also responsible for extending his family business of the traditional Chinese medicine manufacturing company, Eu Yan Sang, into Hong Kong; he felt it was necessary to diversify out of the tin industry, which was coming under increasing government regulation.
[6][8] He transformed the business his father left him, originating from that single dispensary in Gopeng, into a chain of traditional medicine shops.
[3] Eu Yan Sang shops in Gopeng and Kampar extended to providing remittance services, allowing Chinese miners and plantation workers to send their earnings home.
[1][3][9] As the remittance and medicines businesses expanded, branches were set up in Penang, Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Singapore.
[1][10] In 1914, he expanded the remittance business to reach throughout Malaya as well as the Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, and southern China.
On 7 January 1932, he formed Eu Tong Sen Limited in Singapore but controlled it from Hong Kong where his remittance business was showing the best potential.
In 1908, together with Chung, Eu built a large Chinese theatre in the important mining town of Kampar near Ipoh.
When Eucliff was demolished, a statue of an anonymous World War I soldier[20] was donated to Osborn Barracks in Kowloon where it stayed for 20 years before being relocated to Hong Kong Park.
1 Eu Tong Sen, and 6,000 pounds for a tank that had two "eyes" to further the British efforts in World War I.
Art treasures selected in Europe by himself fill these various residences of the great Chinese tin magnate; the marble for his houses was brought from Italy.