One Hundred Years' History Of The Chinese In Singapore: The Annotated Edition. Ong Siang Song
Chun Fook was born in Penang, the son of Tchan Yow Chuen, the first Straits-born Chinese to explore the interior of the Malaya forests. He came to Singapore to live with his uncle, Whampoa Hoo Ah Kay at the age of 10 and studied at Raffles Institution. When Whampoa died, he and his cousin, Hoo Ah Yip, were appointed managers of Whampoa’s business. He left the business after 40 years to start his own business. A charitable man, he was appointed to the Chinese Advisory Board in 1890. See Arnold Wright & HA Cartwright (eds), Twentieth Century Impressions of British Malaya (London: Lloyd’s Greater Britain Publishing Company, 1908), at 636.
14Best known as the publisher of the Singapore Free Press and author of An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore, Charles Burton Buckley (1844–1912) was a much-loved, high-profile resident of the settlement. He was born on 30 January 1844, the son of the Reverend John Wall Buckley. He was educated at Winchester College and came to Singapore on the recommendation of William Henry Read. He arrived in Singapore in 1864 and joined the firm of AL Johnston & Co where he remained for 11 years before reading law privately. He practised with Edward and William Nanson till 1904 when he retired from the firm of Rodyk and Davidson. In 1884, he acquired the dormant Singapore Free Press. This publication had ceased operations some years earlier, but under Buckley’s hand it was resurrected. In a few years, it grew to become a daily newspaper with a popular history column, the contents of which contributed greatly to Buckley’s seminal book, published in 1902. He retained ties with Johore, acting as advisor to the Sultan up till his death. See Walter Makepeace, Gilbert Edward Brooke and Roland St. John Braddell (eds), One Hundred Years of Singapore, Vol 2 (London: John Murray, 1921), at 453–457; and Joshua Chia Yeong Jia, ‘Charles Burton Buckley’ at Singapore Infopedia; http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_1145_2006-08-29.html (accessed 30 Oct 2015).
15The man after whom Cairnhill is named, Charles Carnie (1810–1873) was a successful merchant. He built the first residence in Cairnhill in 1840. The house sat on a sprawling 64-acre plantation, which in 1848 boasted 4,370 nutmeg trees. He also formed the firm Martin, Dyce & Co and traded in Manila and Batavia. An adventurous and plucky man, he had a penchant for hunting tigers. See Sharon Siddique, Nutmeg and a Touch of Spice: The Story of Cairnhill Road (Singapore: Sembawang Properties, 2000).
16A Scottish merchant, Walter Scott Duncan (1803–1857) came to Singapore in 1823 and joined the firm Johnston & Co as a clerk. He stayed for just a year before leaving for Rhio, an Indonesian province, to tend to the firm’s business there. He later returned to Singapore, setting up a ship chandler’s business and buying a plantation in Siglap, next to that of Dr Robert Little’s, near the seventh mile on Changi Road, which he called Mount Thule. There he lived till his death in 1857. See CB Buckley, An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore (Singapore: Fraser & Neave, 1902), at 155.
17Singapore Free Press, 11 Feb 1847, at 2.
18Admiral Henry Keppel (1809–1904) never lived in Singapore but visited several times in the 1840s as Captain of HMS Meander on missions to counter piracy. By then he had already advanced significantly in the Royal Navy, having joined in 1822. From being captain, he continued to work his way steadily up the ranks, eventually becoming Admiral of the Fleet in 1877. He served in Africa, China and Crimea, and was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in honour of his achievements. See Henry Keppel, A Sailor’s Life under Four Sovereigns, 3 Vols (London: Macmillan & Co, 1889).
19[Song: A Sailor’s Life Under Four Sovereigns].
20Sir Henry Keppel, A Sailor’s Life under Four Sovereigns, Vol 2 (London: MacMillan & Co, 1899), at 80.
21Ibid, Vol 3, at 14–15.
22A member of the Legislative Council, William Guiseppe Gulland (1842–1906) was well-known in society. He came to Singapore in the early 1860s, joining the firm of Paterson, Simon & Co. Starting as a clerk, he worked his way up and eventually became a partner of the firm. See Walter Makepeace, Gilbert Edward Brooke and Roland St John Braddell (eds), One Hundred Years of Singapore, Vol 1 (London: John Murray, 1921), at 152 & 585. Gulland was also passionate about Chinese porcelain; he amassed a large collection numbering hundred of pieces, which he bequeathed to the Victoria & Albert Museum. He even wrote a book on Chinese porcelain. See ‘William Giuseppi Gulland’ at <http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/w/william-giuseppi-gulland/> (accessed 20 Jul 2015).
23Joaquim Brothers was a thriving law firm. At the end of the 19th century, one of its partners Parsick Joaquim died, and with his demise the partnership was dissolved. One of its new lawyers, Roland Allen, took over to keep the firm going and was joined by John Joseph Gledhill, a former assistant at the firm. Together they revived the firm as Allen & Gledhill in 1902, which is now one of Singapore’s leading law firms. See Julian Davison, Allen & Gledhill Centenary (Singapore: Allen & Gledhill, 2002).
24According to Song, this gunpowder magazine was already in existence in 1864 and originally owned by Chan Koo Chan – who married Tan Tock Seng’s sister – and was then known as Alexandra Magazine. It later moved to Tanah Merah Kechil. See Chapter 6 of this volume. On 31 July 1869, Tan Seng Poh and Lee Cheng Tee became owners of the magazine and gave a public luncheon at its grand opening in Tanah Merah. See Chapter 7 of this volume.
25See Chapter 2, n 4.
26A British Protestant missionary, Samuel Dyer (1804–1843) had a fervent desire to spread the gospel which brought him to China, Penang, Malacca and Singapore. He came to the Straits in 1827, aged only 16. He and his wife, Maria Dyer, devoted their lives to working with Chinese communities, learning the language, translating the Bible into Chinese and even creating a steel typeface for printing in Chinese that worked better than traditional woodblocks. They arrived in Singapore in 1842. Here he conducted religious services and preached widely, while she opened a boarding school for Chinese girls in their own home, which later become St Margaret’s Primary School. He stayed only a year before travelling to Hong Kong, where he took ill with a fever and died on 24 November 1843. See generally, Evan Davies, Memoir of the Rev Samuel Dyer, Sixteen Years Missionary to the Chinese (London: John Snow, 1846).
27James Legge (1815–1897) was a sinologist and a Congregationalist. In 1839 he went to China as a missionary but broke journey at Malacca where he took charge of the Anglo-Chinese College there. Legge later moved with the College to Hong Kong, where he lived for the next 30 years. There he translated many important works and served as a pastor and newspaper editor. In 1867 he returned to Scotland and two years later embarked on a major trip to China. Returning to England in 1873, he moved to Oxford where he was made a Fellow of Corpus Christi College and became the university’s first professor of Chinese. See Helen Edith Legge, James Legge, Missionary and Scholar (London: Religious Tract Society, 1905).
28Some ten years after Maria Dyer (see n 26 above) left Singapore following the death of her husband in 1843, Sophia Cooke arrived from England. She took over the boarding school for Chinese girls that Dyer had been running out of her home on North Bridge Road. Cooke threw herself into her new role with enthusiasm, learning the Malay language. For the next 42 years she devoted herself to the education and development of the girls in her school, which became known lovingly as Miss Cooke’s School, before finally becoming St Margaret’s Primary School. See EA Walker, Sophia Cooke: Forty-Two Years’ Work in Singapore by EA Walker (London: Elliot Stock, 1899).
29Reverend JAB Cook purchased the church’s building from the London Missionary Society, using funds from Singaporean merchants living in London. The church was renamed Prinsep Street Church and put under the administration of the English Presbyterian Church, from which Rev Cook hailed. See CB Buckley, An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore 1819–1867 (Singapore: Fraser & Neave, 1902), at 640.
30See Straits Times, 28 Apr 1905, at 5; and ‘The late Mr C Philips: