Occupation physician, politician Name Lim Hoe | Died March 23, 1983 | |
Born 27 April 1894 Singapore, Straits Settlements | ||
Sir Han Hoe Lim, CBE, JP (27 April 1894 – 23 March 1983), was a Singaporean physician and politician who was appointed an unofficial member of the Legislative Council of the Straits Settlements in 1933, becoming the Council's senior Chinese unofficial member the next year, and was concurrently appointed an unofficial member of the Executive Council in 1940. After the war, he was an unofficial member of the Singapore Advisory Council from 1946 to 1948 and the senior unofficial member of the Executive Council of Singapore from 1948 to 1951.
Lim was educated at Chong Cheng School, Saint Andrew's School, Raffles Institution and King Edward VII Medical School. Later on, he studied medicine in the United Kingdom, graduating from the University of Edinburgh in 1918. After graduation, he took up private practice in Singapore and he became interested in the public affairs of the city. Before the Second World War, he was the chairman of the city's Straits Chinese British Association from 1930 to 1932, a Municipal Commissioner of the Municipal Commission, an unofficial Justice of the Peace, as well as a member of a number of public bodies like the Chinese Advisory Board and the Education Committee.
Lim was arrested after the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942. During the occupation years, he was imprisoned for being accused of secretly listening to the broadcasting of the Allied nations. He was not released until the end of the Second World War in 1945. In the following year, he became the second Malayan Chinese to receive the honour of knighthood. After the war, he helped found the University of Malaya and was appointed a member of the Public Service Commission from 1952 to 1956, serving as its chairman for less than a year in 1956. Later in his life, he withdrew from politics as Singapore gradually gained self-rule and independence.