People/financier, magnate

Lowe Kong Meng

Lowe Kong Meng (1831–1888), financier, magnate, from United Kingdom. Linked to gold.

The lucky break

Born in British Penang, he came to Victoria in 1853 and in 1854 founded the importing firm Kong Meng and Co., supplying Chinese miners with goods from China, India and elsewhere.1,2,3

Legacy

On 30 May 1859 he led a delegation of Melbourne's Chinese merchants to the Chief Secretary to plead exemption from the residence tax. By the early 1860s his firm had branches in Melbourne, Mauritius, Hong Kong and London, and he was customs agent for 53 ships between 1857 and 1867.1,2,3

Story cards

Timeline

  1. from July 1851Victorian gold rush4
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Where next

People

Partner ofLouis Ah MouyTwo Melbourne Chinese merchants sent passengers back to China.1

Events

FinancedVictorian gold rushHe supplied Chinese miners from Penang-born trading networks.1

Sources

  1. Lowe Kong Meng and Chinese engagement (Provenance 2012) Public Record Office Victoria
  2. Wikidata item Q21536375
  3. File pages and licence metadata for portraits (via the Commons imageinfo/extmetadata API) Wikimedia Commons
  4. Year Book Australia 1911, gold chapter Australian Bureau of Statistics

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pictures: Pangkalpinang. Mijn 3b. Een reeks koelies bezig met het transporteeren van grond, Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0); San Francisco, California: the Golden Gate bay area. Photograph, ca. 1880., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0).