Lim Boon Keng OBE (Chinese: 林文慶; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Lîm Bûn-khèng; 18 October 1869 – 1 January 1957) was a Peranakan physician who advocated social and educational reforms in Singapore in the early 20th-century.

Mr Lim Boon Keng 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.

[2] 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.

As a member of the Legislative Council, Lim wanted opium banned so he formed the Anti-Opium Society.

[3] Lim has created an officer of the Order of the British Empire on 12 March 1918 (backdated to 1 January 1918) for his services as an Unofficial Member of the Legislative Council of the Straits Settlements.

The following year in June, upon the request of Sun Yat-sen, Lim served as the second president of Xiamen University, until the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in July 1937.

[5] As the president of Xiamen University, Lim published his own English translation of the Chinese poem Li Sao, also known as An Elegy on Encountering Sorrows.

Lim's wife was then made to kneel down under the scorching sun for four hours at a stretch, in addition to bearing other insults.

[6][7] In March 1942, Lim was ordered by the Japanese to raise a "donation" of 50 million straits dollars for Japan.

In response to the anger of Takase, Lim made an emotional speech: "We never told a lie.