History
Captain W.G. Shellabear is recognized as the founder of MPH. In 1890, he established the Amelia Bishop Press in Singapore, publishing Christian literature. The company eventually began publishing secular works as well, changing its name to the American Mission Press in 1893. In the 1900s, Rev. William T. Cherry expanded the organization's activities to printing, publishing, bookselling, and book distribution. He changed the company's name to Methodist Publishing House in 1906, giving rise to the acronym 'MPH', as the company is known today.
MPH underwent further name changes between the 1920s and 1960s but the acronym remained. The company also changed ownership multiple times, being acquired by an Indonesian consortium in 1966, then a Hong Kong group in 1972 and finally by Singaporean entrepreneur Simon Cheong in 1999. In 2002, Malaysian businessman Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary, through Jalinan Inspirasi Sdn Bhd, acquired the company. This was the first time MPH became a wholly Malaysian-owned company.
Read more about this topic: MPH Bookstores
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”
—Henry Ford (1863–1947)
“History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.”
—Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)