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Towkay Khi Ho Nin
The Straits Trading Company revolutionized the tin mining industry at the end of the nineteenth century by assaying the tin scientifically, offering better prices for the ore based upon actual mineral content and paying the cash immediately. Khi Ho Nin, aka Khi Nin, was one of the ultimately very successful miners to benefit from this new approach.
Starting from very humble beginnings he came to work in the Kinta mines at Papan in 1884 at the age of 16. By the age of 21 he had to decide whether go on working as a coolie to survive or to take risks and venture out on his own. His decision was helped by the change of government policy in 1888 to allow miners with limited capital to start their own mines. Anyone who could pay 100 dollars for survey fees and quick rent could start working a 25 acre block of land under contract, to be forfeited to the State if they failed to develop the land within the first year. Khi Ho Nin was also helped by the price of the London markets soaring to unheard of levels in the same year.
When the Straits Trading Company set up office in Ipoh in 1890 he was able to establish a positive cash flow and success followed. As the Kinta Tin Rush reached its height Khi Nin applied for 26 mining leases totaling over 330 acres during the period 1889 to 1895. Each lease was for 21 years allowing him sufficient time to recover his capital many times over. Through determination and hard work he and a lot of other miners had established them selves with large tracts of good mining land in such centres as Papan and Batu Gajah before the Government switched policy, at the beginning of the twentieth century, to favouring the big European tin companies.
Khi Nin’s successful investment in land enabled him to donate 20 acres in Batu Gajah for the Chinese Cemetery, and to co-found and maintain the Kuan Tay Temple and a Chinese school in the same town. By the 1910s he had expanded his operations into Tronoh and around Ipoh, owning 320 acres and employing 482 workers in the mines. He was widely respected for the support he gave to the new arrivals, known as sinkhehs, in providing temporary food and shelter. He and his partners generously supported the spiritual wellbeing of the local people and when Khi Nin died in 1920, age 52 it was a big loss to the Batu Gajah community. As his son had no involvement in mining the mines were then leased out.
To read more about the Straits Trading Company, click here.