光緒十四年戊子八月吉日 (1888)
Madam Yeo
光緒十六年嵗庚寅七月吉 1890
DEATHS
The Straits Times, 8 April 1927, Page 8
The Straits Times, 19 December 1908, Page 6
1908 - 55 years ie born 1853
1910 - 26th Dec , 56 years
The Straits Times, 2 January 1924, Page 10
1924 2 Jan, 70 years
Hundred years history
Cheong Ann Bee was born in Malacca in 1833 and came to
Singapore at the age of 10. His father, Cheong Koe Boon, who was a
China-born, migrated to Malacca, where he settled down as a trader.
Cheong Ann Bee knew no English, but as a boy he attended a Chinese
school. After serving in the European firms of Messrs Dare & Co and
W Mansfield & Co, he started a shipchandlery business in partnership
with Tan Eng Siew in 1867 under the name of Ann-bee, Eng-siew &
Co. In 1870 the two partners decided to carry on business separately.
Six years later Ann-bee & Co. Became Ann-bee, Keng-lam & Co, un-
til the retirement of Keng Lam, and Cheong Ann Bee took Syed Mohamed A1sagoff and
Lim Eng Keng into partnership with him in the
firm of Ann-bee & Co, which was wound up in 1898. Cheong Ann Bee died on the 9th March 1896 in his sixty-third year. He was a man of charitable disposition and used to give away freely eye salve to people suffering from any complaint of that organ. People of the coolie class often sought his aid when troubled with their eyes.
On one occasion in June 1890 while Mr Ann Bee was examining the eyes of a coolie,
he was stabbed by the patient, fortunately not severely : the injuries
being a cut on the shoulder and two cuts on the head. His assailant
also attacked a European police constable, who tried to arrest him,
and afterwards appeared at the Assizes, where he received a sentence
of two years' imprisonment.