From Johor Bahru Directory
| Dato' Onn Ja'afar was the 7th Menteri Besar of Johor (1946-1950).
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Dato' Onn bin Ja'afar (1895 - 1962) was a Malay politician and a Menteri Besar (Chief Minister) of Johor in then Malaya. Most noted for founding the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) in 1946, he was also responsible for the social economic welfare of the Malays by setting up the Rural Industrial Development Authority (RIDA) in 1973. His son, Tun Hussein Onn, was the 3rd Prime Minister of Malaysia, while his grandson, Hishammuddin Hussein, is currently the Minister of Education in the Malaysian Cabinet.
2. Born in Johor Bahru, the capital of the Sultanate of Johor to Dato Jaafar Haji Muhammad, the first Menteri Besar of Johor, and a Turkish mother, Onn was sent by Sultan Ibrahim to be educated in England and upon his return, was sent by his father to study at the Malay College in Kuala Kangsar. He served for a time as a government official in Johor. Turning then to journalism, he edited two Malay newspapers, the Lembaga Melayu and the Warta Malaya, the first independent Malay daily. When Onn was a member of the Majlis Mesyuarat Negeri Johor, he made two important political contributions to the people of Johor, which were the setting up of the Sultan Ibrahim Scholarship and the issuance of free air fares to perform the Hajj in Makkah for Islamic officers serving the Johor government.
3. After World War II, Onn became extremely active in the Malay nationalist movement, founding the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) as a means to rally the Malays against the Malayan Union which was perceived as threatening Malay privileges and the position of the Malay rulers. He took up the role of UMNO's president in May 1946 and was made Menteri Besar by the Sultan of Johor in October that year when plans for the Union were withdrawn. Onn was later disgusted with what he considered to be UMNO's communalist policies and called for party membership to be opened to all Malayans, and for UMNO to be renamed as the United Malayans National Organisation. When his recommendations went unheeded, he left the party in August 1951 to form the Independence of Malaya Party (IMP).
4. The IMP failed to receive sufficient backing from Malayans, and eventually Onn left it to form the Parti Negara, which placed membership restrictions on non-Malays in an attempt to woo the Malays. Neither party gained popular support against Tunku Abdul Rahman's new Alliance coalition and he was eventually eclipsed from Malayan political life. Onn died in 1962, age 66.
