History of New Club

History of New Club

One of the oldest clubs in Malaysia – Taiping New Club (TNC) - is situated at a site which has the panoramic view of the azure coloured Bukit Larut, the scenic Lake Gardens with the rain-trees’  branches  dipping on the water, the district officer’s residence  hill lock  and the historic playing field, the Esplanade (Padang Perbandaran).

It is situated at its own named road –Jalan New Club, Taiping.

It was founded in 1885 known as Perak Club for the social life of colonial British officers and their families. The  British Resident restricted the membership to the high ranking British civil service officers and tin miners while the planters had no place in the Club.

There was some misunderstanding, the majority of the senior Perak Club members resigned and formed “The New Club”. Those involved in forming TNC were Dr Shepherd, Lefroy, Gray and Aylesbury.The name TNC still remains till to date.

The Club was designed by G.A.Lefroy, in 1893 the club house built costing RM ($) 10, 000 and was opened the next year. It consisted of a reading room, a billiard room, a card room, a large dining hall, and five residential chambers; and at the rear was a croquet pitch.

In 1894 on the site where the New Club stands was donated by Sultan Raja Sir Idris Mersedil Aathim Shah KCMG ibni Iskandar Shah and proper title f the land was issued.

Largely the members of the TNC started playing golf nearby the club, and the enthusiastic golf players formed the earliest golf club in the country and naming it “The Perak Golf Club” and had its office in TNC. It is now the second oldest golf club in South East Asia.

It boasted having affiliated to 70 foreign and local clubs and till to date it is affiliated to the earliest golf club in the world - St Andrew’s Golf Club in Scotland.

The early development of the club was due to H.L.H.Tate who was the club secretary in 1903 and to honour him for his contribution to the club a room was named as “The Tate Room’ after him.

At the foot of Bukit Larut (Maxwell Hills) with beautiful flora and fauna is a scenic waterfall cascading cool clean water flowing from the tributaries in the hill. TNC took the opportunity and built a family size swimming pool and named it as Taiping Swimming Club exclusively for the members only.

When the club built its own new swimming pool besides the club premises and handed Taiping Swimming Pool over to the Taiping Town Council which could have preserved it and turned into a heritage pool to attract tourists. Now it is in an awful state of neglect and it is covered with secondary jungle. It is the haunt for druggists who carry out undesirable activities.

In 1907 the club membership rose to 270, comprising of government officers, miners and planters; and

Its membership was limited to British nationals only. Australians were not allowed in the club but were allowed to play golf and had their refreshments at a shed outside the club.

All club activities stopped during the Japanese occupation. After the Japanese surrendered, the club was reopened on 20 November 1945 under the management of 25^th Gymkhana Regiment with Major General G.N. Wood as its president.  After the British Military Administration was over the club was returned to the former members of the club. H.L.H.Tate was elected as the president of the club.

After the war due changes in the country‘s modernization and nationalism programmes, the outlook of the club changed. The first Malaysian, a Taiping resident, known as “Charcoal King” Lim Huan Lye was admitted as a member of the club in 1948.

Till 1966 all the presidents Of TNC elected were British and when they left the country, in 1967 the first Malaysian TNC president elected was Datuk Seri Mohd Razak Akram. The present president now is a prominent businessman in Taiping Datuk Kamarulbahrain Zainuddin.

Gradually the club activities increased from golf to tennis. Tennis became one of the favourite sports among the members and in 1989 two all weather all day tennis courts were built for them. The tennis playing members formed their own sub-committee and carried out their actively their tennis related functions.

When the club extended its activities sub-committees were formed for playing darts, line dance, karaoke, swimming, library, library and squash. It privatized the game room.

There are now two chambers for out station members, a card room, billiard room, sauna bath, banquet hall, dinning room.

The patron of the club is the Perak Sultan, Sultan Azlan Shah and the honourary members are the Larut, Matang and Selama (LMS) Territorial Chief, LMS District Officer,  Taiping District police chief, District executive engineer, heads of other government departments, the president of Taiping Municipal Council, Taiping high court judge, Tan Sri Razak Ismail and members of parliament.

Besides the above mentioned activities, annually the Chinese New Year, Christmas, Hari Raya, Merdeka Day, New Year, Viasaki Day and others are celebrated with dinner and dance.

The club intends to build a badminton hall, Golf gallery and a golf driving range.

End.