One Hundred Years' History Of The Chinese In Singapore: The Annotated Edition. Ong Siang Song
cassowaries to add to the museum on board Rodney, also some pigs to establish a breed at Bishopstoke.’
In recognition of his many services to the Government, he was appointed in 1869 a member of the Legislative Council, and a few years later an extraordinary member of the Executive Council – a position which had not previously, nor has since, been held by a Chinese. Mr Gulland22 tells us that to prevent himself going to sleep during the prosaic deliberations of that august body, Whampoa used to keep on anointing his nostrils with Chinese peppermint. In 1876 he was made a CMG, and died on the 27th March 1880 at the age of 64 years. His remains were taken to China and he was buried on Danes Island, opposite Canton. An amusing incident is related by Mr Gulland thus:
One day a party of gentlemen were at Johore [56] spending the day with the late Sultan. About five o’clock His Highness and a number of his followers saw them to the landing stage, a wooden structure which gave way with the weight, and we all dropped about six feet into the water which fortunately was only up to about the waists of most of us. No one was hurt, but Whampoa had to be fished out, and once more on dry land the old gentleman took out of his pocket a cheap crystal-backed Waterbury watch. Through the glass you could see the watch was more than half full of salt water, which the old gentleman discharged through the tiny hole: after doing so he gave the watch a good shake which set it going again. Our fine expensive watches had all to go to the watchmaker’s before they would move. Roughness has its advantages sometimes.
Whampoa held simultaneously the position of consul in Singapore for Russia, China and Japan. As consul for Russia, he possessed a consular uniform and sword, which he only wore once, because he looked so ‘ugly’ from his curious appearance in it, and was laughed at so much. Towards the latter part of his life, in company with some European merchants, he embarked in speculative business which got him into trouble, without his fault, but he weathered the storm, with his fortune, however, very much reduced. He was an upright, kind-hearted, modest and simple man, a friend to everyone in the place. Mr Buckley tells us that Whampoa could sing only one Chinese song (if he could be persuaded to sing), that it was very laughable, and that he was as much amused and laughed as heartily as anyone else. Of his three sons, the eldest, Hoo Ah Yip – educated in England as mentioned in Admiral Keppel’s book – managed the firm of Whampoa & Co for a short time only when he died; his second son, Hoo Keng Choong, is also dead, and his youngest son, Mr Hoo Keng Tuck, who was for many years employed in the legal firm of Joaquim Brothers23 (now Allen & Gledhill), is now in charge of the old firm of Whampoa & Co, [57] General Merchants and Importers of the highest class of Chinese curios and china wares. Of a retiring disposition, Mr Hoo Keng Tuck is one of the few well-educated Straits Chinese who realise that exertions on behalf of the public earn only the ill-will of some influential parties and the thanks of nobody. Like a philosopher, or rather the hermit crab, he lives in complete retirement, looking out occasionally from his coign of vantage upon his luckless compatriots who are struggling to make this world a better place to live in for themselves and their children, pretty much as a Martian might watch the social activities of the earth’s inhabitants.
In 1842 and 1843 there occurred a long series of gang robberies by armed Chinese, owing to the inefficient state of the police department: and on the 10th February 1843, at a public meeting of the inhabitants, several resolutions were passed, the 7th and 8th being as follows:
Hoo Ah Yip
Hoo Keng Choong
Hoo Keng Tuck
That it is an understood fact that many of the Chinese shopkeepers and traders in the town, particularly the native-born subjects of China, pay regular sums to the Hueys or Brotherhoods (organised associations of Chinese often for unlawful purposes) as protection money for their own property, or as a contribution in the nature of blackmail, and that it rarely or never happens that the Chinese are themselves sufferers from the depredations complained of.
That it is highly expedient a law should be passed having for its object the suppression of these brotherhoods so far as the same may be effected or influenced by legal enactments, and in particular that it should be made penal for any person or persons to pay or receive any sum of money as protection money of the nature specified in the preceding resolution.
As usual, no immediate steps were taken, and the lawless bands continued to terrorise the people. In the course of one week, in March, four Klings were [58] murdered in a boat at Tanah Merah; the powder magazine of Tock Seng on Kallang River24 was broken open by a large gang of Chinese robbers and large quantities of powder carried off; a quantity of coal stored at Tanjong Rhu was set on fire by an incendiary; while a gang of armed Chinese landed from a boat at New Harbour and attacked several houses, but were driven off by the Temenggong and his followers.
The Straits Chinese Church in Prinsep Street was built in 1843 by the Rev Benjamin Peach Keasberry, who came to Singapore in 1837 as a missionary of the American Board of Missions and joined the London Missionary Society, which had other representatives at that time there, and continued to work with that Society till 1847. Having learnt Malay from Abdullah Munshi25, Mr Keasberry started a small school at Rochore and carried on preaching in Malay in an attap building in North Bridge Road nearly opposite where the Chinese Gospel House is now. He would not give up his work in Singapore when in 1847 the London Missionary Society instructed all their men to proceed to China, and became a self-supporting missionary, occupying himself with his school, his preaching, and the printing establishment (now Fraser & Neave, Ltd) by which he maintained the school, until his death, which occurred suddenly while preaching in the ‘Greja Keasberry’ on 6th September 1875 at the age of 64.
The opening sermon in this church (then known as the Malay Chapel) was preached by the Rev Samuel Dyer26 of Penang, and the service on the following Sunday was taken by the Rev Dr Legge27, both passing through on their way to China. For a number of years the girls of Miss Cooke’s28 Chinese Girls’ School regularly worshipped in this chapel. In 1885, after the congregation of Straits Chinese Christians had been for ten years under the ministrations of the Rev William Young, who had to leave for England owing to failing health, the Rev JAB Cook29 of the English Presbyterian Chinese Mission took over the care of the congregation. [59]
For close on forty years Straits Chinese gentlemen have been associated with the missionaries as voluntary preachers in this church. In addition, most valuable service has been rendered to the missionaries by several Christian workers among the English residents, of whom the most prominent and devoted was the late Mr Charles Phillips, Superintendent of the Sailors’ Home for thirty-two years. Mr Phillips not only took his place as one of the regular preachers in the Malay language at the morning service and in English at the evening service, but translated a large number of English hymns into Malay for the use of the Straits Chinese congregation. He took a deep interest in the work of the Chinese Christian Association from the time of its inception in 1889 until his death in 1904. He was a man greatly beloved by the Straits Chinese, and Prinsep Street Church became a fitting repository for a mural tablet to his memory, which was unveiled by his oldest friend, Mr CB Buckley.30 Among other voluntary preachers who have passed away were Messrs Song Hoot Kiam,31 Tan Kong Wee32 and Na Tien Piet.33 The jubilee of the Chapel was held on the 7th February 1893, when the memory of Mr Keasberry was associated with it, and although eighteen years had elapsed since his death, the service was crowded with those who had known him in Singapore and wished to do honour to one who had been among the pioneers in mission and educational work in Malaya. In 1902 the Rev W Murray34 arrived in Singapore as a missionary of the EPC Mission to take charge of this church and of mission work among the Straits Chinese, and he has been here ever since engaged in steady, earnest and valuable work in their midst.
At this time (1843) Singapore was more than ever before infested with