One Hundred Years' History Of The Chinese In Singapore: The Annotated Edition. Ong Siang Song
Civil Servants and was placed in the Secretary’s Office under Stamford Raffles, then the Under Secretary. In 1808, Ibbetson was sent to Rangoon to learn the Burmese language and ‘to qualify himself for superintending the purchase of teak for shipbuilding, then proposed to be carried on in Penang’. This did not come to pass and Ibbetson returned to Penang the following year and joined the office of the Civil and Military Paymaster. In 1820, when the Court of Directors of the East India Company gave special permission to civil servants to cultivate spices, Ibbetson took advantage of the opportunity. In 1824, he became Secretary to the Government and two years later, became a member of the Council. When the Straits Settlements Presidency was ‘downgraded’ to a Residency in 1829, Ibbetson was appointed Resident of all three Settlements. In 1832, when the capital of the Straits Settlements moved from Penang to Singapore, Ibbetson became its Governor but had no real power. See ‘Mr Robert Ibbetson’ Straits Times, 26 Sep 1874, at 1.
15As translated by G Uma Devi, this reads:
Rather tall is the house of Chek Chong Long
Underneath it is a shop that sells cloth
Alas a poisonous snake lives nearby
Can we catch and play with it?
16Very little is known of William Charles Spottiswoode save that he was one of the partners of the trading firm Spottiswoode Connolly, which had been founded in 1824 by John Connolly and Charles Spottiswoode. In 1849, the name of the firm was changed to William Spottiswoode Co. William Spottiswoode left the firm at the end of 1856. See CB Buckley, An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore 1819–1867 (Singapore: Fraser & Neave, 1902), at 233.
17[Song: Eastern Seas (1837)]. George Windsor Earl, The Eastern Seas or Voyages and Adventures of the Indian Archipelago in 1832–33–34 (London: Wm H Allen & Co, 1837), at 363. George Windsor Earl (1813–1865) was an English lawyer, explorer and colonial civil servant. British scholar Russell Jones writes of Earl:
George Windsor Earl was one of the many versatile amateur scholar-adventurers who found their way to the east in the nineteenth century. To Australians he is known as a ‘pioneer of northern Australia’. We know from one of his books that by August 1828 he had spent several months in Fremantle, Western Australia, and since he had by then been out of England for three years he may have reached Australia by 1829. …
He had other interests. In fact his peregrinations tended to conform to a triangular pattern stretching between London, Australia, and South-East Asia. His first recorded contact with the Indonesian area was during the period 1832–34 when, sailing northwards from Australia, he visited Java, Singapore, Sumatra, Thailand, Borneo, and other places. The book in which he described these travels, The Eastern Seas, is the one by which he liked to be remembered. The rest of Earl’s life is reasonably well documented and can be summarised without difficulty. When he arrived in Singapore once more, in 1848, he was accompanied by his wife, acquired in London, and their baby daughter, acquired in Sydney. With family responsibilities, he settled down to less adventurous jobs. In September 1849, as we saw earlier, he settled in Singapore as a partner in the law practice of JR Logan, an occupation he was following in the crucial year 1850.
In 1852 Earl left Singapore to perform once more his triangular peregrination: in 1854 to Australia, in 1856 back to Singapore to resume his practice of the law. In June 1857 he entered the Public Service in Singapore, a profession which occupied the remaining eight years of his life. At first he was a magistrate and Assistant Resident Councillor in Singapore; in February 1859 he transferred to Penang, another of the Straits Settlements. Penang was less salubrious than Singapore and Earl ‘whose constitution had been undermined by recurrent bouts of malaria for the past twenty years’ suffered from ill health during his service there. Penang includes the strip on the opposite mainland called Province Wellesley and it was while serving there on 29 August 1863 that Earl had an attack of ‘sunstroke’, leading to paralysis of one side of his body. He was able to carry on in his office, but by the end of the year his condition had deteriorated to a point where he had to be given medical leave for twelve months. As a result he spent most of 1864 on sick leave in Australia.
By January 1865 he had recovered and was able to resume duty in Penang. In June 1865 he applied for transfer from the island to Province Wellesley. There again he fell ill and again had to be given twelve months’ sick leave, this time in Europe. On 7 August he embarked with his wife in the Shantung, but two days out from Penang he died. His remains were brought back to Penang for burial.
See Russell Jones, ‘George Windsor Earl and “Indonesia”’ (1994) 22(64) Indonesia Circle 279–290, at 281–282.
18George Windsor Earl, The Eastern Seas or Voyages and Adventures of the Indian Archipelago in 1832–33–34 (London: Wm H Allen & Co, 1837), at 363.
19Edward Stanley (1798–1878) entered the Royal Navy in 1812. While serving on HMS Gloucester in 1826, he was the officer in command responsible for suppressing a fire in Cronstadt and saved the Russian fleet from destruction. For his work against piracy in the region, which included attacking a large group of 18 prahus with 700 people on board in March 1835, he received thanks from the Governor General of India in Council, the Naval Commander-in-Chief Sir Bladen Capel, the Governor of Prince of Wales’ Islands and Singapore, the Penang Chamber of Commerce, the Madras Chamber of Commerce as well as the Singapore Chamber of Commerce. See Richard Gott, Britain’s Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt (London, Verso, 2011), at 287–288.
20See CB Buckley, An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore 1819–1867 (Singapore: Fraser & Neave, 1902), at 280.
21Song appears to misspell Albrand’s first name. Etienne-Raymond Albrand (1805–1853) came from Gap, in Dauphine, France. He preached to people on the streets and instructed potential converts in his house, sometimes rewarding new students with tea and tobacco. By September 1833, he had 100 Chinese converts. He also learnt Teochew, aiding in his conversion of 30 Chinese in the Riau Islands. He died a Bishop, after having worked 21 years first in Singapore and then in Thailand. See CB Buckley, An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore 1819–1867 (Singapore: Fraser & Neave, 1902), at 121–122.
22See Singapore Free Press, 27 Jul 1848, at 3.
23Anatole Manduit (1817–1858) came from Coutances in Normandy, France. He studied Chinese and could converse with and hear the confessions of Chinese Christians. He actively sought funds for his church and the school until his death at age 41 on 1 April 1858 and was buried in the grounds of St Joseph’s Church in Bukit Timah. See CB Buckley, An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore 1819–1867 (Singapore: Fraser & Neave, 1902), at 251.
24Teo Eng Hock (1871–1958) was a Straits-born Teochew. He invested in rubber plantations in his early years and, along with Tan Kah Kee, monopolised the 20th century rubber shoes manufacturing trade in Singapore. He took part in the Singapore Revolutionary Movement and later followed Sun Yat Sen. He was a founder of the Tung Meng Hui (Chinese Revolutionary League) Branch in Singapore in 1906 and of the Kuomintang Branch in Singapore in 1912. He founded Nanyang Girls’ School in 1917. He returned to China in 1932 and became Mayor of Swatow. During World War II, he supported Wang Jinwei’s pro-Japanese regime and was later classified as a war traitor and detained by the Kuomintang government. He retired and passed away in Hong Kong. His daughter, Teo Soon Kim, was Singapore’s first female lawyer; Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean is her grand-nephew. See
25Along with his brother Teo Eng Hock, Teo Bah Tan is a prominent supporter of Singapore’s Tung Meng Hui. He is the great-grandfather of current Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean. See
26Lim Peng Nguan (d 1887) came to Singapore in the 1860s. He was a merchant and ran a sundries shop in Beach Road. He was also one of the earliest gambier and pepper planters in Singapore. Peng Nguan Street in Tiong Bahru is named after him. See