WhereIsAtlas · Healthcare

Aw Boon Haw

The Tiger Balm founder who turned a family remedy into a global brand — and lent his fortune to a city (Haw Par Villa)

Deceased — The eldest Aw brother and co-founder of Tiger Balm, one of the world's most recognisable healing brands. He died in 1954, but the brand and his twin legacies — Tiger Balm and Haw Par Villa — endure.

Aw Boon Haw was born in 1882 in Myanmar to a Chinese herbalist family. Together with his younger brother Aw Boon Par, he developed a medicinal ointment from camphor, menthol and other essential oils — a remedy that would become the world-famous Tiger Balm. The name came from Boon Haw's name, which evokes a tiger's roar, and the leaping tiger became the brand's emblem.

From a modest apothecary in Southeast Asia, the brothers built a pharmaceutical empire. Boon Haw was the more entrepreneurial of the two, reinvesting his earnings into a sprawling press and media network and into property. His most famous creation was Haw Par Villa in Singapore — a vast garden park of dioramas depicting Chinese mythology and folklore, one of the city's great cultural landmarks.

He was at once a businessman, a philanthropist and a self-styled king of his domain. He died in 1954, but by then Tiger Balm had spread far beyond Asia and the Aw family name had become inseparable from the fortitude and enterprise of the era's overseas Chinese merchants.

Quick facts

Born
1882, Myanmar (to a Chinese herbalist family)
Co-founded
Tiger Balm (with brother Aw Boon Par)
Brand emblem
The leaping tiger, from his name
Landmark
Haw Par Villa, Singapore
Died
1954
Legacy
One of Asia's most famous healing brands

Sources

Related: tiger balm haw par · nauru