Earnest Lau

Earnest Lau (; 26 March 1929 – 5 March 2011) was a Singaporean educator, writer and archivist. He began teaching at the Anglo-Chinese School there in 1955, being promoted to the post of senior assistant in 1971 and then to headmaster in 1977, serving in that position until 1983, after which he went to work for the Ministry of Education. Just a year after he had begun working there, he was appointed the director of the Regional Language Centre of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization, remaining in this post for seven years. He then became the archivist for the Methodist Church in Singapore, authoring several works chronicling its history in that capacity.

Early life and education Lau was born in Singapore on 26 March 1929. He was the eldest son of the Java-born Methodist pastor Edward Sing Lau Both were educated in Methodist schools in Malaya, with his father having studied at the Anglo-Chinese School (ACS) in Singapore and his mother being a member of one of the earliest batches of students at the Methodist Girls' School in Kuala Lumpur. They had married in the United States and returned as missionaries.

World War II and further studies With the beginning of the invasion, the Lau family were forced to evacuate their bungalow as it was part of a compound which had been requisitioned by the British army, alongside the nearby school and church. They relocated to Benefit Road. When the Japanese occupied Singapore, the schools were shuttered. Following the end of the occupation in September 1945, the family returned to Geylang. Methodist missionary and future Bishop Hobart Amstutz claimed in 1953 that Lau's "presence and upright bearing" had "cleared the suspicions of Asians, particularly the Chinese, in the American community in which he was staying."

After graduating, he applied to several institutions in the United Kingdom, as a British degree offered far more opportunities than an American degree in Singapore. He was accepted to the Downing College at the University of Cambridge and the Balliol College at the University of Oxford, choosing the latter as he felt that it was more renowned. There, he studied for a Bachelor of Arts in History degree and his Diploma in Education. He had by then already decided on following in his parents' footsteps and becoming an educator.

Career ACS ACS at Barker Road in 2006. The school had relocated here from Coleman Street and Cairnhill Road by Lau's return in 1955. After graduating from Oxford, Lau returned to Singapore in late August 1955 He was also made a housemaster and helped establish the Janus Club among the pre-University classes. He taught English History for two years before it was taken off the syllabus. Students of his in this period include remisier Yap Swee Hoo and businessman Rafiq Jumabhoy.

In the mid-1950s, Lau and a few colleagues joined the Singapore Graduate Teachers' Association, a union which he felt was "neither here nor there". The association merged with the Singapore Teachers' Union in 1960, and this union threatened to take collective action, though Lau was opposed to this as he did not wish for the students' education to be harmed. He and most, if not all, of the teachers at ACS withdrew from the union afterwards. They were later asked to rejoin, though Lau declined, believing that the union offered little benefit to him. He became the senior assistant for the afternoon or continuation school at ACS in 1971, though this did not come with a pay rise. In 1981, he was appointed to the newly established Schools Council, serving on it for three terms and chairing the South Zone Schools' Council. He successfully obtained approval for the construction of a hostel for foreign students of ACS and ACJC at the start of 1982. As principal, he was viewed as "stern and formidable" and a "very hard taskmaster".

Real estate agent Tan Tee Khoon, who was a student of ACS under Lau's tenure as principal, recalled that despite the latter's "austere appearance and strict disciplinarian approach", he was also a "discerning and dedicated educator who sought his students' total well-being", and heavily supported their character development. Other students of ACS in this period swimmers Ang Peng Siong and David Lim, the latter of whom credited Lau with giving him a "clear path to follow" regarding discipline. Politician Vivian Balakrishnan, also a student in this time, considered Lau a "'major presence' in his school life".

In late 1983, Lau suddenly announced to the school's staff at a meeting that he would no longer be the principal of ACS. He later recalled that the ACS Board of Governors had sent him a letter stating that he would "no longer be required for the school" as principal, though he was "welcome" to remain at the school as a teacher. The letter did not give any reason for this, and Lau did not ask for any, though he did not understand why this decision had been made, especially as his relationship with the board had been "satisfactory". As this would have been a "shameful thing to tell his teachers", he did not reveal this to any of the staff, instead announcing that he would be retiring. was held at the Pavilian Intercontinental Hotel on 7 April.

MOE, RELC and archival work On learning of the ACS Board of Governors' decision, Lau informed the Senior Minister that he would be "available" from 1 January 1984. As he was viewed positively within the MOE for his work with the Schools' Council, he was asked to report to the MOE on 2 January. Due to this, which he viewed as a "watershed in which [he] then had a chance to have a different kind of work", Lau eventually came to view his firing from ACS as a "blessing in disguise". After leaving ACS, Lau was appointed the assistant director with the Ministry of Education's Supplementary Material Authorisation department, in charge of vetting textbooks and distributing the funds allocated for the upgrading of school libraries. His former department at the Ministry of Education was "weakened" by his departure and he was succeeded there by Raffles Institution headmaster A. K. Sigamoney in December. When he took over, the centre was not profitable, worsened by the poor performance of its hotel, which was in need of an upgrade and suffering from low occupancy due to a "hotel slump" in the country.

Lau became the archivist for the Methodist Church in Singapore the year after resigning from RELC; he succeeded Bishop Theodore R. Doraisamy, who had died the year before, a private school of the church established to cater towards drop-outs. He continued to serve in that post until he was succeeded in 2003 by Lenie Cho.

In 2000, Lau began work on The ACS Story, a coffee table book which aimed to be a "fairly comprehensive summary of the evolution of the ACS in its 117 years of history". The book, which he wrote and edited, was published by the ACS Board of Governors in 2003 on 1 March, the school's founders' day. contributed the biographical entries on Sophia Blackmore and Theodore R. Doraisamy, both prominent figures in the history of Methodism in Singapore, in A Dictionary of Asian Christianity, published by W.B. Eerdmans in 2001. He authored From Mission to Church: The Evolution of The Methodist Church in Singapore and Malaysia: 1885-1976, published by local independent publisher Armour Publishing in 2008. Pastor Chiang Ming Shun felt that the book "should be recommended reading for all Methodists." He then wrote a commemorative pamphlet for the 125th anniversary of Methodism in Singapore in 2010.

Personal life and death

On 29 December 1956, Lau married Kwa Geok Lian, also known as Mrs. Earnest Lau, a fellow educator who served as the headmaster of the Anglo-Chinese School (Junior). Kwa was the sister of Kwa Geok Choo, a lawyer who was the wife of the first Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, Kwa Geok Lan, the wife of politician Yong Nyuk Lin, and civil servants Kwa Soon Bee and Kwa Soon Chuan. Through Kwa Geok Choo, Lau was the uncle by marriage of the third Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong, who remembered him as a "dedicated tutor who taught him discipline, attention to detail and how to express himself well", as well as the director of the National Neuroscience Institute Lee Wei Ling and businessman Lee Hsien Yang.

He and Geok Lian had no children, and the latter died of cancer far before he did. The couple owned and lived in two adjacent single-storey bungalows at 15 and 15A Camden Road within the Camden Park Good Class Bungalow district. He spoke in a "clipped Oxford" accent.

Lau died of heart failure while taking a nap at home on 5 March 2011. He had been recovering from a pacemaker implant and his health had been failing for some time by then. The wake was held the next day at the Singapore Casket. Speakers at the wake included Lee Hsien Loong, Lee Wei Ling, Vivian Balakrishnan and Kang Ho Soon, and the attendees also included Lee Hsien Loong's wife Ho Ching and remaining sibling Lee Hsien Yang. The funeral was held at the Kampong Kapor Methodist Church on 8 March, after which he was cremated at the Mandai Crematorium. In his obituary in The Straits Times, he was described as one of the country's "most respected educators." On his death, he bequeathed the Camden Road properties to the Kampong Kapor Methodist Church. The church put the properties up for sale by tender in March 2016 with the expectation that they would then be redeveloped.