Public Celebrations in Colonial Singapore — With Particular Reference to a Case Study of Celebration and Homicide in 1872

By Erik Holmberg

Abstract

Research on public celebrations in colonial Singapore can go beyond the spectacular imagery of the grand extravaganzas that were sponsored by the colonial state and private-sector elites. Such research can even use celebratory events as entry points into the underside of the colonial society. An exploration of how a homicide at the Fortune of War tavern during a Christmas celebration in 1872 was reported in the local newspaper at the time (together with some consideration of the social and criminal context of this incident and its aftermath) supports David Cannadine’s argument that class divisions were at least as important as racial divisions in the British Empire. This case study of celebration and criminality supports the conclusion that much can be learned about the nature of the social history of colonial Singapore from the pages of the local press, including its class structure, and even about the long-forgotten people who lived on the margins of that society. The image of the European section of the local population which emerges from this research is quite different from the preoccupation with a small group of elite Westerners who comprise the cast of characters in the standard works on Singapore’s colonial history. Instead, this study has uncovered traces of colonial Singapore’s European underclass, allowing a glimpse of an almost totally forgotten aspect of the underside of this colonial society, and showing that even the tiny European population was more socially diverse than we might expect. This essay demonstrates how the exploration of a single celebration, together with its context and its aftermath, can expand the boundaries of the field of colonial social history in Singapore.

Public celebrations in colonial Singapore (or, more specifically, the surviving evidence of these past celebrations) offer a means to gain a better understanding of the social history of the people of this Settlement, especially when placed within their social context. In particular, an exploration of the history of public celebrations on this island may provide insights into the nature of the social structure and the social interactions among people belonging to different sections of its ethnically-diverse population. Through certain festivities, we may even learn something about the lives of people who have been largely forgotten. Although the space limitations of this essay prevent a detailed discussion of multiple celebrations, it is possible nevertheless to focus special attention on a single celebration as a case study while also paying some attention to its social and historical context, in order to reveal aspects of Singapore’s past that have been largely overlooked and point the way towards further historical research.¹

Colonial Singapore was the scene of a variety of public celebrations, many of which were colourful and spectacular. Some celebrations that took place in public were organised especially by and for the members of certain ethnic or religious groups, while others attracted participants from many or all sections of the diverse population. Such festivities included celebrations of royal birthdays, coronations, and jubilees, visits by travelling royalty, anniversaries of the founding of colonial Singapore by Sir Stamford Raffles, and celebrations of imperial military victories. Naturally, such royal and imperial events were grand, spectacular extravaganzas, which were organised by official and private-sector elites — in other words, the type of people whose names most often found their way into the newspapers and the history books. Indeed, such events and the newspaper reports about them helped ensure that local Asian elites received public recognition of their elite status.

These spectacular festivities attracted the attention of the diverse local population. For example, the celebrations in Singapore of the Silver Jubilee of King George V in 1935 included a parade at the Padang which attracted a cosmopolitan audience of almost 50,000 spectators;² there was also a three-milelong Chinese lantern procession organised by the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce in which 200 organisations and 30,000 people participated, and which attracted an estimated crowd of 300,000 spectators.³ The organisers of these celebrations included not only colonial government officials, but also the organisations and associations of various sections of the population, and the parades and decorations themselves often showcased the diversity of the population, as well as the organisational ability of community leaders. However, this is not to say that the public celebrations of the past can only teach us about the elites. In fact, the records of celebrations can also tell us about the lives of non-elite, working-class or underclass people — in other words, the forgotten people of the past.

Public celebrations belonged to the masses as well as to the elites. The Padang provided an important venue or stage for many colonial-era festivities, and the grand scale and spectacular imagery of these events naturally attracted a great deal of public interest, at a time when there was no television or Internet. Crowds of spectators often numbered in the tens (if not hundreds) of thousands, all evidently interested in seeing the parades and decorations. Their shared interest in these events transcended the boundaries of their cultural, ethnic, and religious identities.

However, we must not assume that celebratory activity was limited to the grand and spectacular public celebrations of the British Empire, its monarchy, its victorious wars, and its local hero and founding father, Sir Stamford Raffles.⁴ Indeed, celebratory activity could also take the form of much more humble sorts of activities and occasions, such as a Christmas celebration at a tavern in Tanjong Pagar in 1872 that had tragic consequences.

What can such events tell us about the social structure of the ethnically diverse population of this colonial port city? How did certain members of different sections of this population interact with one another? What can certain festivities tell us about the lives of the forgotten people of the past? What about the social and historical context of these celebrations? Can (and should) a particular event in the past that was apparently regarded as relatively insignificant at the time and soon forgotten, be transformed through a process of scholarly interpretation (as E.H. Carr famously explained) into a significant historical fact?⁵ These are the sorts of questions which have been considered in my research, and are brought into focus through the consideration of a specific event and its historical context. Though the scope of this essay is necessarily modest, it just might help suggest a whole new field of research in the history of Singapore: namely, the social history of crime in this multiethnic Southeast Asian city and its utility as a means to better understand the working-class people of the past, a direction of research which has been suggested recently by Syed Muhd Khairudin Aljunied.⁶ The topic of murder in the social history of colonial Singapore has also been explored by William Roff⁷ and James Francis Warren.⁸

The exploration of the social history of colonial Singapore offers the intriguing possibility that we may retrieve not only the lives of forgotten individuals, but actually reveal whole sections or classes of the population which have been largely overlooked in the existing historical narrative. One of these sections is the working-class European population of colonial Singapore. Just as the Chinese of colonial Singapore were not all impoverished coolies (indeed, some local Chinese elites were extremely rich), the Europeans of colonial Singapore were not all wealthy elites. Indeed, the vast majority of the Europeans who stayed in colonial Singapore for any length of time (that is, who could be described as inhabitants of Singapore) must have been working-class soldiers and sailors. Some of these soldiers and sailors committed crimes which were reported in the local newspapers. This is not to say that all of them engaged in violent crimes — but the reports of such crimes give us some insights into how these people lived (and sometimes died) in Singapore.

James Francis Warren has shown that the lives of the forgotten people of the past can be retrieved through the records of their deaths, in his famous books Rickshaw Coolie and Ah Ku and Karayuki-san. A tragic and violent incident that occurred at a tavern in Tanjong Pagar on the evening of Christmas Day in 1872 provides an example of how a report of a violent death which occurred during a holiday celebration can shed light on the lives of non-elite people of the past, and, more broadly, on certain aspects of the nature of the colonial society. The following pages will take this incident as a case study, exploring this event in detail and placing it within its historical context, in an effort to reveal previously underappreciated (or even unknown) aspects of Singapore’s colonial-era social history.

A Tragedy At The Fortune Of War Tavern in 1872: A Christmas Celebration in Tanjong Pagar That Turned Violent

“A very serious affray occurred last night at a tavern called the ‘Fortune of War,’ on
the corner of Tanjong Pagar and New Harbour roads, between some men of the 80^th
Regiment from the steamer Scotland, and some sailors belonging to that vessel. …
a patrol of soldiers, with sidearms, was sent out from the ship to look for stragglers,
but the attractions of the tavern, and the fact of it being Christmas, proved too great
for them, and the patrol remained there, drinking with the sailors and others, until
a late hour, when, as usual when sailors and soldiers meet at a drinking bout, the
entertainment wound up with a fight. The soldiers used their bayonets, and the
sailors their knives and anything else they could get hold of. One of the sailors was
killed, we believe with a bayonet wound in the abdomen, and there were several
wounded on both sides.” — Singapore Daily Times, 26 December 1872.

While exploring the history of public celebrations in colonial Singapore, I happened to find an account of a Christmas celebration in 1872 which sadly degenerated into a tragic and violent incident. By piecing together the news reports that appeared over several months in the pages of the Singapore Daily Times, it is possible to reconstruct an account of violence and bloodshed in a tavern and its judicial aftermath, as well as certain aspects of the social and criminal context within which this story played out. It is a story that reads like something out of the lore of the Wild West of the American frontier, rather than what one might expect to find in the history of Singapore, which is today a city-state that is internationally renowned for its orderliness and safety. This forgotten tragedy in 1872 provides insights into a little-known aspect of the social history of colonial Singapore, namely the lifestyle and recreational activities of European soldiers and sailors, their presence on this island, the nature of their criminal activities, and the responses of the colonial authorities and the local press. These insights may help to provide a more balanced view of the society of colonial Singapore, and could help to clear up some possible misconceptions about this society that might exist in the present day.

Today, when we think of Europeans in the colonial Settlement of Singapore, we may imagine wealthy people who lived in mansions, attended by servants. However, not all Europeans in the Settlement were wealthy and privileged; in fact, it is practically certain that most of them were working-class soldiers and sailors, whose natural habitats included taverns and the less-reputable streets and alleys of Singapore, rather than sumptuous mansions in fashionable suburbs. Likewise, when we think of rioting or other violence in colonial Singapore, we may think of gangs of Chinese samsengs who belonged to secret societies, fighting each other in the streets.⁹ However, the Chinese secret society members weren’t the only offenders who committed acts of violence here. Not all of the Europeans here were respectable lawabiding inhabitants of the Settlement, and violent crimes committed by Europeans were not unknown. Indeed, the number and variety of crimes committed by Europeans in Singapore in late 1872 and early 1873 is sufficient to suggest that European criminality was a significant component of the overall criminality in this Settlement, and, hence, a feature of the local social history of crime which must not be overlooked in the study of Singapore’s social past.

The respectable side of the Western presence in the Settlement has been conspicuously commemorated in the statue of Raffles, in the names of Raffles Place and Raffles Hotel, in all the other streets and places which were named after prominent Westerners, and in the mansions which were the homes of wealthy Europeans, some of which still survive today. However, the involvement of some Westerners in the disreputable side of life in colonial Singapore was, quite naturally, never commemorated with monuments, for obvious reasons.¹⁰ There was evidently a belief among the British elites in the colonial era that the presence of poor or unemployed Europeans in Singapore and Malaya was an embarrassment that posed a threat to European prestige; moreover, they felt that their prestige had to be sustained at all times, since it was regarded as essential to the colonial system here.11 John Butcher has explored this topic in detail in his book The British in Malaya, 1880–1941: The Social History of a European Community in Colonial South-East Asia.¹² Nevertheless, there was a presence of working-class Europeans in colonial Singapore, and it is the task of the social historian to explore such forgotten elements of this society, in order to achieve a fuller understanding of the social history of this place. It is understandable if the way in which the colonial past is remembered or imagined gives scant attention to non-elite Europeans, and most especially to those who strayed from the straight and narrow path of the law-abiding subjects of the Empire, and put themselves on the wrong side of the law. Still, the presence and activities of working-class and underprivileged Europeans in the Settlement of Singapore — including the involvement of some of them in criminal activities — should not be forgotten, since they were part and parcel of the overall picture of the colonial society. Without taking these people into consideration, no account of Singapore’s past society can hope to be complete.

In the interest of promoting a more balanced view of the colonial past, the following pages will show what went wrong when soldiers and sailors celebrated Christmas together in a tavern in Tanjong Pagar in 1872. A consideration of this case may shed light on several aspects of colonial Singapore at that time. For example, it may reveal information on the nature of the European population in Singapore back then (a population which included those who were just passing through, as well as those who had settled down here), together with the local law-and-order situation, and the nature of the colonial criminal justice system, including the types of sentences which this system meted out to those who were convicted of violent crimes. The discussion in the following pages will also attempt to place the involvement of Europeans in criminal activities and the colonial justice system within the broader social and criminal context of Singapore in the early 1870s.

The work of prominent historians on the social history of Singapore and Malaya has inspired this exploration of celebration, crime, and death in Tanjong Pagar in 1872. James Francis Warren has shown how historical research can recover and retrieve the experiences and lives of largely-forgotten people,¹³ in his classic studies of the social history of rickshaw pullers and prostitutes: Rickshaw Coolie: A People’s History of Singapore (1880–1940) and: Ah Ku and Karayuki-san: Prostitution in Singapore 1870–1940. John Butcher has described the situation of non-elite Europeans in Malaya, including working-class train divers and unemployed rubber planters, and also analysed the significance of a well-known European murder case, in his book The British in Malaya, 1880–1941: The Social History of a European Community in Colonial South-East Asia.¹⁴ The lives of Chinese immigrant labourers, including their experiences in China which motivated them to leave their homeland, the process of emigration, and the social problems which they experienced in Singapore and Malaya, have been vividly depicted by Yen Ching-hwang, in A Social History of the Chinese in Singapore and Malaya 1800–1911.¹⁵ While Chinese immigrant labourers comprised the bulk of the labouring-class population of Singapore in the 19th and early 20th centuries, we should not forget the other, less numerous sections of the working-class population, including those who were from Europe.

European soldiers and sailors belonged to the social landscape of colonial Singapore, even if their stays here were sometimes brief, when they were just stopping here on their way to other posts or ports. It must be remembered that the terms soldier and sailor were not just the descriptions of individuals; they were also the descriptions of categories of people in Singapore. As individuals, soldiers and sailors may have been members of a floating, transient population, some of whom were posted here, while others were just passing through; but as categories of people, soldiers and sailors were long-term fixtures of the population of colonial Singapore. Although the individuals circulated in and out of this port city, the categories were represented year after year, and generation after generation.

Western soldiers and sailors have been continually present in modern Singapore, alongside the Arab, Armenian, Chinese, Eurasian, Indian, Jewish, and Malay elements of Singapore’s population. The evidence presented in the following pages will suggest the unfortunate possibility that Western soldiers and sailors may have been responsible for a significant share of the local criminality. At the same time, the evidence suggests that the considerable amount of violent crime in 19th century Singapore was normalised and considered tolerable in the context of a frontier society in this Southeast Asian port. While analysing the significance of certain acts of violence in an effort to find what they can reveal about the social context, and especially about forgotten people of the past, this essay will endeavour to allow the Singapore Daily Times to tell what happened in its own words, allowing this essay’s readers to receive the news just as the original readers of the newspaper did over a century ago. The Singapore Daily Times was evidently the leading local daily newspaper in the early 1870s. There were no Chinese-language or Malay-language local newspapers at that time.

The Criminal Context in Singapore in December 1872

Before proceeding to the tragedy at the “Fortune of War” tavern, a few examples of other violent criminal activities that occurred in December 1872 will help to place the homicide in the tavern within the context of criminality and bloodshed in Singapore at that time. Singapore in the 19th century was the home of a multiracial society; it was an income-tax-free paradise for rich men regardless of their race or religion, and its economy was in the hands of a multiracial business class, which included wealthy Arabs, Chinese, Europeans, Indians, and Jews. Perhaps it should be no surprise that a multiracial criminal element perpetrated the violence that plagued this sunny island.

One example of such violence was a fight that broke out among some Chinese men in Kampong Glam on 16 December 1872, and that involved, among other violent acts, the killing of a man with a spear. According to the report in the Singapore Daily Times of that date:

This morning, a serious riot occurred at Campong Glam, between two factions of
Chinese, — we believe the Old Ghee Hin and the Say Tan kongsees, — in which
spears, poles, and even firearms were used. There have been … three stabbed and
one shot ….¹⁶

Yet, despite the gruesome nature of this incident of street-fighting in Kampong Glam, the way this incident was reported in the newspaper suggests that its editor did not regard it as especially upsetting — rather, it seems more likely that such gang battles were regarded as part and parcel of life in Singapore back then, and not particularly threatening to the overall social, political, and economic order.

The Singapore Daily Times provided additional information on this riot in its next issue, including the identities of the groups involved in the violence, and details of the death of a man from a spear wound

The riot at Campong Glam yesterday was not, we learn, between the Say Tan
and Ghee Hin Kongsees, but between two Teo Chew factions, the Ghee Hin and
Ghee Kee Societies. About fifty police were under arms … besides a large body of
constables armed with batons. … one man [was] killed outright with a spear, which
broke off in his body ….¹⁷

These reports indicate that the editor of the Singapore Daily Times believed that the paper’s readers were interested in reading about street battles between groups of Chinese in Kampong Glam, yet there is no sense of shock or panic; evidently, these things happened from time to time in frontier Singapore in the 1870s.

Similarly, a report on a murder trial in 1873 suggests that deadly brawls were commonplace in Singapore at that time. According to the Singapore Daily Times:

There was one case, in which four men were charged with the murder of a man
in a riot. Riots, unfortunately, are of too frequent occurrence here, and murder
during those riots also occurred lamentably often. In the present case, a man had
been most barbarously murdered, having no less [than] four spear wounds, one
of the spears having entered under the rib and penetrated into the heart, causing
instant death.¹⁸

Spears seem to have been popular weapons in Singapore in those days. In 1873, a Bugis man by the name of Wah Dolah killed two people at Changi, one of whom was a Chinese Muslim named Mat Sallee, who was speared to death. The murderer initially evaded capture,¹⁹ but, ironically, he was arrested in the police court when he appeared there on an unrelated matter. The Singapore Daily Times informed its readers that:

Some time ago, we reported a double murder committed at Changhie, by a
man named Dolah. The murderer has been caught, under somewhat curious
circumstances. He stole some rice from a Chinaman at Bukit Timah, and the
Chinaman gave him a beating. He gave the Chinaman in charge for assault, and a
counter charge of theft was preferred against himself. Both parties were brought to
the police court, where the murderer was recognised and arrested for the crime.²⁰

An incident which occurred on the day before the Teo Chew battle in Kampong Glam in December 1872 suggests that there was a certain degree of indiscipline (including drunkenness and violent criminality) among some of the very men upon whom the local colonial authorities relied to help maintain order in Singapore. The Singapore Daily Times complained about the conduct of some Indians (the newspaper called them Klings) on a Sunday evening along Orchard Road:

The overbearing conduct of a Kling with a badge, the banding together of
Chinamen for revenge, and the cowardice of some members of the Police, were
so clearly demonstrated in a case which came before Mr. F.H. Gottlieb the day
before yesterday … On Sunday, about 8 p.m., a Kling named Iman Kader, (the Chief
Peon²¹ attached to the Establishment of our Chief Justice) accompanied by three
companions, all of them intoxicated, took it into his head to assault a Chinaman
who was passing quietly by on Orchard Road … an Acting Corporal and a Police Constable … were standing by … the Acting Corporal and Constable disappeared
… [after fighting broke out between a group of Chinese and a group of “Klings”] The row was stopped by the interference of Dr. Anderson, Mr. Atchison, and Mr. Koek ….²²

These few examples of criminality will suffice to give a sense of the context of criminality at the time of the Christmas celebration at the Fortune of War tavern in 1872, and to indicate that a certain degree of violence and disorderly behaviour was a fact of life in colonial Singapore at that time. The examples above also show that violent crimes were committed in this frontier Settlement by people of various ethnic and occupational backgrounds — in these cases, we have examples of violent crimes committed by Chinese gangsters, a Bugis man, and an Indian subordinate of the Chief Justice — and soon we will turn to European criminality as well. However, if the tone of the reporting in the Singapore Daily Times is any indication, the resident European population does not seem to have been especially alarmed about such violence. For example, this researcher found no evidence that Europeans were thinking of fleeing Singapore because of the endemic violence here, or were planning to send their children away to safety. Could their apparently calm reaction be explained by the perception that the violence was evidently not directed at them, and did not threaten the colonial social, political, and economic order?

The nature of colonial Singapore as a frontier Settlement in the early 1870s is further emphasised by the fact that this island was adjacent to the Malay States which were then regarded as dangerous places in desperate need of the imposition of the imperial order of Pax Britannica; indeed, in April 1873, Chinese businessmen petitioned the British authorities to intervene in the Malay States.²³ However, this was a time when the British authorities were reluctant to increase their involvement in Malaya. On 8 November 1872, Governor Sir Harry St. George Ord announced that “Her Majesty’s Government will hold out no promise of protection to the gentlemen who live by commerce in their trading and mining operations in these native states.” The Singapore Daily Times criticised the Governor’s statement, claiming that:

This unblushing abnegation of the very first duty of any government and its only
raison d’être, has not been appreciated by the community as perhaps it ought to be
and people ask whether it would not be better, more honest and certainly more
dignified, for Great Britain, if afraid or unwilling to fulfil its responsibilities in this
quarter of the globe, to retire and give place to some other power, say America for
instance, who would not hesitate a moment in protecting its citizens in their lawful
callings, exacting instant and ample satisfaction for insults to its flag, and making
short work with pirates, their friends and abettors.²⁴

The situation in the Malay Peninsula must have appeared quite bleak for the Singapore Daily Times to suggest (even with tongue-in-cheek) that Great Britain should allow the United States of America to take charge of the Malay States and impose Pax Americana! Of course, it is practically certain that the real intent
of this provocative statement in the Singapore Daily Times was to goad the British Empire into expanding its dominion throughout the Malayan Peninsula — which, in fact, it did soon after, presumably to the great relief of many Chinese businessmen, who proceeded to amass vast fortunes in the Malayan tin-mining industry.²⁵ But, back in 1872 and 1873, Singapore could still be seen by Europeans — and by local Chinese businessmen, for that matter — as a frontier port on the edge of Western civilisation in Southeast Asia.

When the British steamship Scotland steamed into Singapore’s harbour, the ship’s passengers and crew found themselves in a frontier Settlement that was rife with an endemic yet manageable level of disorder and violence, a place where men speared each other to death in the streets, and where the police were accused of cowardice. Perhaps it might even be said that violent crime had become normalised in colonial Singapore, at least up to a point. A colonial frontier society that could not completely rid itself of violence could at least accept some violence as a normal and tolerable fact of life and become accustomed to it, so long as the social structure was not threatened and business was able to proceed and flourish as usual.

The Arrival of the Steamship Scotland

A British steamship called the Scotland arrived in Singapore from London on 23 December 1872, under the command of Captain James. This 1,286-ton vessel was apparently a merchant ship — the Scotland was listed under the heading of “Steamers” in the published shipping list, rather than under the heading of “Men-of-War,” and the mercantile firm of Paterson, Simons & Company was listed as the “Consignee or Agents” for the Scotland.²⁶ Nevertheless, some soldiers of Her Majesty’s 80th Regiment were aboard this ship.²⁷ The Scotland had arrived in Singapore in time for Christmas, and we can imagine that the soldiers and sailors aboard this British vessel looked forward to celebrating Christmas ashore — though their ideas of celebration may have involved liquor and prostitutes rather than religious observance. Unfortunately, their celebrations were marred by violence, and for one of them, Singapore would be the final port of call.

The arrival of the Scotland immediately preceded (and perhaps even caused) the unleashing of violence and terror upon some of the law-abiding people of Singapore. Ironically, the perpetrators included men who disgraced the honour of the armed services to which they belonged, and who were duty-bound to defend the subjects of the British Empire, rather than assaulting and robbing them. During Christmas Day in 1872, soldiers and sailors invaded the homes of local people, with the intention of seizing their holiday cakes and liquid refreshments. The Portuguese inhabitants of Singapore seem to have been particularly targeted by these unwanted visitors. These Portuguese people were probably members of the Portuguese Eurasian community of Singapore. We can only speculate as to why the Portuguese people were targeted by the European criminal element, but this could have been related to the fact that the Eurasians were Christians (and were therefore celebrating Christmas with cakes and beverages that tempted certain unwanted visitors), as well as the fact that many of them lived in a centrally-located residential area, where they may have been noticed by passing soldiers and sailors. The centre of this Eurasian residential area included the locality of Queen Street, Waterloo Street, and Bencoolen Street,²⁸ near St. Joseph’s Church in Victoria Street, which was founded by the Portuguese Catholic Mission in Singapore.²⁹

In addition, the fact that the Portuguese Eurasians belonged to a relatively small minority within the ethnically diverse population of Singapore might have caused their would-be attackers to view them as more vulnerable than the members of the Chinese majority here. It could well be that the lawbreaking soldiers and sailors knew enough about Singapore and the reputation of its Chinese community to know that anyone who interfered with the Chinese here might well provoke swift and severe retaliation by members of the powerful Chinese secret societies.³⁰ Certainly, at least some of the British soldiers and sailors were familiar with the inside of the Singapore jail, and their terms of incarceration there would have given them opportunities to become acquainted with the local Chinese gangsters. Still, this explanation is merely speculation, which may attribute to these loutish and violent soldiers and sailors a far greater degree of rationality and intelligence than they actually possessed, particularly when they were under the influence of alcohol while ashore after a long sea voyage.

The Singapore Daily Times informed its readers on 26 December 1872:

We hear that yesterday afternoon some drunken sailors forcibly entered a private
house in North Bridge Road, opposite the Scotch Church, and made a general smash
of everything they found on the ground floor, including all the eatables prepared for
the Christmas dinner. The master of the house came down stairs with some friends
to drive out the intruders, and the sailor[s] showed fight, assaulting two or three of
the visitors in a brutal manner. We understand a number of soldiers and sailors went
about during the day, walking uninvited into the houses of Portuguese residents,
to the alarm of the inmates, that they might regale themselves with drink and
Christmas cakes.³¹

Since this report in the Singapore Daily Times did not specify whether these soldiers and sailors were from the steamship Scotland, we must not assume that the perpetrators were necessarily connected with this doubtlessly excellent vessel. It is quite possible that the seafarers may have been from other ships in the harbour, and that the soldiers could have belonged to the 10th (The North Lincolnshire) Regiment of Foot, 1st Battalion, which arrived in Singapore in December 1872.³² Some of these intrepid soldiers evidently found themselves unequal to the challenge of staying on the right side of the law: by 1875, no less than 23 soldiers of Her Majesty’s 10th Regiment were securely accommodated behind bars in the Singapore jail.³³

At the risk of getting ahead of the story, it seems appropriate to mention here as an aside that the local Portuguese Eurasians later demonstrated that they were fully capable of dealing with the British soldiers who dared to invade their homes and threaten their families. When some soldiers from Her Majesty’s 10^th Regiment entered a private residence in Queen Street uninvited in June 1873, the inhabitants and their neighbours treated their unwelcome visitors to a lesson they would remember, and were commended for it by the Singapore Daily Times, which reported the incident as follows:

We think it is greatly to be regretted that the men of the 1/10th are allowed to roam
about the streets of the town at night, after so many instances of their excesses
as our police records afford. On Saturday evening, two soldiers of this regiment, in
a quarrelsome, drunken condition, attempted to carry things with a high hand in
Queen Street. They unceremoniously entered the house of a Portuguese family,
whereupon the women, who were sitting in the lower room, took flight up stairs. The
soldiers attempted to follow, but were stopped by the men in the house, and quietly
asked to leave. Instead of doing so, the soldiers deliberately shut the doors, and
took off their belts to use as weapons, but before they could make use of them the
neighbours rushed in and gave the two ruffians a sound beating, after which they
were given in charge to the police. We understand they were so severely punished
that it was deemed advisable to send them to hospital. We trust a few examples like
this will have a good effect.³⁴

Could it be that the Singapore Daily Times was actually in favour of some form of vigilante justice? This conclusion is suggested by the report’s comment on the “good effect” of such examples of summary “punishment” meted out on-the-spot to would-be attackers by their intended victims. In any case, this article provides further evidence for the pattern of criminality on the part of the soldiers of the garrison, supporting the conclusion that among these soldiers were members of the British underclass who had been kitted out in uniforms and sent out to the colonies, where they sadly disgraced the reputation of the British army and the British Empire itself.

It can only be hoped that such individuals were a minority within their regiments, and that their fellow soldiers were generally law-abiding; this could well have been the case, since the bad elements would naturally tend to receive more attention in the press than the soldiers who stayed out of trouble. The article also indicates that Singapore’s Portuguese Eurasians were not about to passively submit to the depredations of rampaging British soldiers; these Eurasian Singaporeans were ready and able to defend their families, with force if need be. Still, it was a profound disgrace to the British Empire that Singapore’s respectable law-abiding civilians were forced to resort to violence in self-defence against the very soldiers of Her Majesty’s 10th Regiment who were supposedly stationed in Singapore to protect this place.

Yuletide Celebration and Tragedy

Alas, the invasion of the home in North Bridge Road on Christmas Day in 1872 and the assault on the people there was not the only violent incident that Christmas, nor was it the most serious crime on that date. The newspaper’s narrative turned swiftly from stolen Christmas cakes, to a story of sailors’ knives, soldiers’ bayonets, and sudden, violent death. The setting of this bloodshed was a tavern called the “Fortune of War” in Tanjong Pagar, in an insalubrious swampy locality near the harbour, which seems to have been devoted at least in part to the refreshment of seafarers. We can imagine what this area was like in the 1870s, thanks to a description of the place written by a visitor who landed here five years after the deadly Yuletide brawl. When the American naturalist William Hornaday arrived in Singapore on 20 May 1878, he described a stinking creek of slime along the road between the harbour and Chinatown, and he noted several taverns with nautical names in this area.35 The imagery of Tanjong Pagar in the 1870s that Hornaday thus bequeathed to us — an image of seafarers’ taverns and a slimy, reeking stream — sets the stage for the picture of holiday celebration and deadly violence that emerges from the microfilmed pages of the Singapore Daily Times.

The first of several reports on the bloodshed at the “Fortune of War” tavern on the night of Christmas in 1872 appeared in the Singapore Daily Times on the following day. This account explains how the soldiers and sailors happened to engage in what seems to have been a friendly Christmas celebration together, complete with alcoholic refreshments, before the party turned ugly. The report goes on to recount how the men in the tavern attacked and wounded a European police officer when he tried to stop the brawl, and how reinforcements finally arrived and brought the situation under control. In the words of the Singapore Daily Times:

A very serious affray occurred last night at a tavern called the ‘Fortune of War,’ on
the corner of Tanjong Pagar and New Harbour roads,³⁶ between some men of the
80th Regiment from the steamer Scotland, and some sailors belonging to that vessel.
There was, we hear, a fight between a sailor and a soldier in the afternoon at this
tavern, which resulted in the arrest of the parties. In the evening, a patrol of soldiers,
with sidearms, was sent out from the ship to look for stragglers, but the attractions
of the tavern, and the fact of it being Christmas, proved too great for them, and the
patrol remained there, drinking with the sailors and others, until a late hour, when, as
usual when sailors and soldiers meet at a drinking bout, the entertainment wound
up with a fight. The soldiers used their bayonets, and the sailors their knives and
anything else they could get hold of. One of the sailors was killed, we believe with
a bayonet wound in the abdomen, and there were several wounded on both sides.
There are two men, a soldier and a sailor, lying wounded on board the steamer, and
two or three others in the hospital. The police arrived while the fight was going
on, and Corporal Barrow, a European police officer, while endeavouring to make
arrests and stop the row, received two or three bayonet scratches and was pretty
well beaten. Reinforcements arrived, however, and a number of combatants were
arrested, and several others were taken into custody this morning from on board
the steamer for having been concerned in the fight. Among the trophies secured by the police are, an old-fashioned cutlass covered with rust, and with spots of blood
on it, — a jack knife with a pointed blade about four inches long, and a heavy iron
belaying-pin. The police are inquiring into the affair, and an inquest will be held on
the body of the sailor who was killed.³⁷

It requires no great stretch of imagination to fill in the details omitted in the brief account published in the Singapore Daily Times, and thus in some sense to bring this long-forgotten incident in Tanjong Pagar back to life, recovering it from the oblivion to which it was consigned generations ago by time’s relentless flight onward into the future. We can picture the soldiers and sailors engaging in a convivial drinking bout, sharing the holiday season and their relief from the monotony of shipboard life with their fellow countrymen, perhaps even singing their homeland’s traditional drinking songs together, drinking merrily side-by-side until soldiers and sailors alike were three sheets to the wind, only to see their Christmas celebration abruptly shattered by a sudden explosion of violence, carnage, and death, transforming the Fortune of War tavern from a place of friendly celebration to a gruesome arena of combat. We can imagine the sounds of breaking glass, clashing steal, and vile profanities, in the heat of the bloody barroom brawl. The floor of the tavern may well have been sprinkled with sawdust, to soak up spilt drinks and the vomit induced by the overconsumption of liquor; but on this occasion, the floor was bespattered with freshly-spilt blood.

The Weaponry of Soldiers and Sailors

A few words are in order here about the nature of the weapons mentioned in the preceding account, and their respective military and nautical characters. The list of weapons shows that the soldiers and sailors brought with them the deadly tools of their respective professions. While many readers may know what a bayonet is, the other weapons mentioned — a jack knife, a cutlass, and an iron belaying pin — may be somewhat less familiar to readers in Singapore today. A bayonet is a knife or dagger designed to be fixed to the muzzle of a soldier’s rifle, for use as a stabbing and slashing weapon to cut down his enemies in close-quarter combat. Even today, newly-commissioned officers of the Singapore Armed Forces parade armed with rifles with bayonets fixed.³⁸

The British soldiers in Singapore in 1872 were likely armed with .577-calibre Snider-Enfield rifles,³⁹ equipped with narrow-bladed, socket-mounted, spike bayonets.⁴⁰ However, the fact that the initial report describes the soldiers who went to the tavern as having been equipped with sidearms might suggest that the type of bayonet which they used in their fight with the sailors could have been a different kind of weapon from the handleless spike bayonets that were made to be attached to rifle muzzles, but were not designed to be used as knives dismounted from the rifles. Perhaps the soldiers carried sword bayonets, sword-shaped knives with handles; these had wider blades than spike bayonets, and featured sword-style hilts that made them suitable for use as dismounted weapons — that is, unattached to rifles.⁴¹

Turning to the other weapons mentioned in the article — a jack knife with a four-inch blade, a rusty cutlass bespattered with blood, and an iron belaying pin — it should be noted that each has been traditionally associated with seafarers. A jack knife is a clasp knife with a blade that can be folded into the handle when not in use. The word jack in jack knife probably refers to a sailor, as in jack-tar.⁴² A cutlass is a short sabre or sword with a wide blade that was long favoured as a sidearm by seafarers in the age of sail.⁴³ A belaying pin is a club-shaped iron bar, thirty to forty-five centimetres in length, which was used to secure ropes called lines to the pinrails along the bulwarks of old-fashioned square-rigged sailing ships. Belaying pins could also be used as deadly weapons in hand-to-hand combat, handy and effective for crushing bones and smashing skulls on land as well as at sea.⁴⁴

Bearing in mind that the cutlass, the jack knife, and the belaying pin that were seized by the police may have been only some of the weapons that were employed in the brawl, and that the newspaper report mentions that the sailors also armed themselves with “anything else they could get hold of” (which might refer to broken bottles, bar stools, and so on), it seems fair to conclude that the men who gathered to celebrate Christmas at the Fortune of War tavern were well-equipped for mayhem. Indeed, given the deadly nature of the available weaponry, it seems somewhat surprising that there was only one fatality during the carnage at this gruesome Christmas celebration. Perhaps the brawl’s surprisingly limited body count can be attributed to some degree of physical impairment and lack of coordination of the combatants, due to the consumption of prodigious quantities of whatever alcoholic refreshments that were on hand during the Christmas celebration preceding the brawl?

The Aftermath Of The Killing At The Fortune Of War Tavern

The Singapore Daily Times later continued the narrative of the incident at the Fortune of War tavern, picking up the story where it left off with the arrival of police reinforcements and the arrest of the perpetrators, and detailing the removal of the dead sailor to the hospital and the subsequent autopsy. Surprisingly, it appeared that the sailor actually died as a result of one or more persons stepping on him, rather than from his multiple wounds. It would seem that the sailor’s immediate cause of death may have been a boot, rather than a bayonet. The Singapore Daily Times reported that:

After the fight, the man was picked up and taken to the hospital, but he died before
reaching there, — in fact he died immediately. In this case, it was most extraordinary
that though the deceased man had no less than ten bayonet and contused wounds
on his body, Dr. Hampshire, who made the post-mortem examination, would be able
to tell them that not one of these wounds was sufficient to cause death, but that
death was caused by the rupture of an artery, which was very probably done by his
being trampled upon. There was, however, the probability that the man was stunned
by one of the wounds he received, which caused him to fall.⁴⁵

Thus, the sailor was apparently knocked to the floor of the tavern, whereupon one or more persons trampled or stomped upon him so severely that one of his blood vessels burst open and he bled to death.

What do these two accounts of the brawl reveal about the newspaper and its readership? The description of the violence, the weaponry, the injuries, and the precise cause of the dead sailor’s exsanguination, could all be indicative of the interests of the readership of the Singapore Daily Times, or at least the editor’s perception of the readers’ interests. What is perhaps more interesting, however, is a rather important detail which was omitted from both of these reports: the dead sailor’s name. Can we conclude that, in the midst of the aftermath of the brutal killing on Christmas night, the individual identities of Dr. Hampshire and Corporal Barrow were far more important in the eyes of the readers of the Singapore Daily Times than the identity of the unfortunate sailor who bled to death on the blood-splattered floor of the Fortune of War tavern?

The newspaper’s accounts left the dead sailor nameless — he was, in fact, relegated to the status of a merely anonymous and passive subject at the centre of the drama that was played out inside the tavern, as well as at the courthouse and in the pages of the Singapore Daily Times. It would seem that the details of the crime, the examination of the corpse, and the apprehension and prosecution of the perpetrators were the topics which attracted the interest of the paper’s editor and readers, rather than the identity of the victim, who was not considered important enough to be named. In contrast to the local European elites who were celebrated in C.B. Buckley’s Anecdotal History and the names of Singapore’s streets and places, this sailor represented the opposite end of the social spectrum within the European presence in colonial Singapore — he was (in the view of the Singapore Daily Times) nameless and apparently unimportant as an individual. He vanished from the documentary record almost as soon as he vanished from the face of the earth following his autopsy.

The names of the soldiers who participated in the brawl were, however, published in the newspaper. According to the Singapore Daily Times:

Ten soldiers of the 80th regiment, named John Langman, Thomas Lovegrove, John
Thomas, William Harrison, Hans Wilson, Partridge Farrar, James Walker, William Dyball,
William Hanna, and Isaac Wooden, who were engaged in the fight at the ‘Fortune of
War’ tavern on Christmas night, were on Tuesday [31 December 1872] committed by
Captain Walshe, Police Magistrate, to take their trial at the next criminal session on a
charge of ‘Culpable Homicide.⁴⁶

The newspaper explained the legal rationale for charging all of the soldiers for complicity in the death of the sailor:

… ten soldiers were charged with having taken part in an affray in which a sailor met
his death. … in law if a number of men were engaged in a fracas they were all liable
for any consequences that might accrue from their action. It would be no excuse
to say that they were drunk, for in law a drunken man is just as liable for his acts as
though he were perfectly sober. The Grand Jury would have to determine whether
those ten men were actually present and engaged in the affray.⁴⁷

The Grand Jury was empanelled at the Court House on 6 January 1873, before Chief Justice Thomas Sidgreaves. The list of the names of the jurors reveals the ethnic diversity of the local European population. All seventeen jurors had European names, although one of them, M.F. De Souza, was probably a local Portuguese Eurasian, and hence an Asian Singaporean. The names of the remaining 16 jurors were divided evenly between eight British names and eight continental European names. The British names were all Scottish: J.B. Caldbeck, A. Duff, C.H. Harrison, W.R. Leisk, G.M. Matson, W. Mulholland, H.W. Wood, and J. Young. The continental European names consisted of two French names (P. Brasier and G.H. Reme), and six Germanic names (J.G. Brinkmann, E. Engel, J.S. Maier, J.G. Rutishauser, C.G. Stahlknecht, and T.H. Sohst).⁴⁸ This list of names conforms to this researcher’s hunch — based on reading a variety of documents — that the two most important ethnic categories within the European population in late 19th century Singapore were the Scots and the Germanic continental Europeans, with the latter category including Hollanders, Switzers, and possibly Austrians, as well as Germans.

One of these Grand Jurors, C.G. Stahlknecht, was the Consul who represented the German Empire in Singapore.⁴⁹ Thus, the fates of the British soldiers charged with homicide were decided in part by non-British jurors, one of whom was the Kaiser’s representative. This illustrates the prominence of continental Europeans in colonial Singapore, and underlines the fact that the term European as used here at that time must not be understood to have been equivalent to the term British. The Germans were especially important as business elites within the European section of Singapore’s population from the middle of the 19th century up to the outbreak of World War One in 1914, when the Germans were interned as enemies of Britain and their extensive properties in Singapore were confiscated by the colonial government.⁵⁰ One of these German properties was their magnificent clubhouse, the Teutonia Club, which later became the Goodwood Park Hotel.

By 10 January 1873, the Grand Jury had found cause to charge eight of the ten soldiers with two counts of indictment: a “count for culpable homicide not amounting to murder” and a “count for culpable homicide not amounting to murder by causing bodily injury likely to cause death. ”The Grand Jury did not find cause to charge two of the soldiers, namely Hans Wilson and Isaac Wooden.⁵¹ The remaining eight soldiers were soon tried, convicted, and sentenced, as announced by a one-sentence report in the Singapore Daily Times:

In the case of the eight soldiers of the 80th, tried on the 20th January, for having
caused the death of a sailor at the ‘Fortune of War’ tavern on Christmas night, the jury
found the prisoners guilty on the second count, for Rioting, and the Sergeant, John
Langman, was sentenced to two years, and the other seven to nine months, rigorous
imprisonment.⁵²

A Local Policeman Beaten To Death By A British Soldier 

A sense of the social and criminal context of the celebration and killing at the Fortune of War tavern requires some consideration of other criminal activity around that time. Tragically, the killing of the sailor in this tavern was not the only case of homicide committed by British soldiers in Singapore that was tried in the local court in 1873. Only about a month after the killing of the sailor on Christmas night in 1872, a soldier from Her Majesty’s 10th Regiment at Tanglin Barracks beat to death an Asian police corporal when the policeman tried to arrest him for the assault and robbery of a Chinese man.

The Singapore Daily Times informed its readers that:

We regret to learn of very grave charges being brought against the conduct of the
men of H.M. 10th Regiment. They are talked about as being very disorderly, and
four of them are accused of being concerned in the death of a Corporal of police,
murder in fact. The circumstances are stated to have been as follows. Mr. Snowden,
the Senior Magistrate, driving out one evening lately, found those four men
assaulting and robbing a poor wretch of a Chinaman. The rascals frankly confessed
to Mr. Snowden that they wanted money for a spree and that was their reason for
attacking the unlucky Chinaman. Mr. Snowden drove to the Police Station, and an
unfortunate native Corporal proceeded alone, with more pluck than wisdom, to the
scene of action. He found the soldiers still there, and he was set upon immediately
by them with their belts, and mauled to such an extent that he has since died from
his injuries. It appears, however, that the soldiers were secured and taken to the
Police Station, and then under some misapprehension ordered to be sent up to the
Tanglin Barracks to be dealt with by their commanding officer. Upon their arrival
there they are said to have been allowed to mix with their comrades, and the result
now is that it is impossible to identify them.⁵³

However, the soldiers were identified and brought to justice, apparently with the help of a non-commissioned officer at Tanglin Barracks, as the Singapore Daily Times reported in a brief article which also provided additional details about the crime, as well as offering a few comments about the significance of the case for the Settlement of Singapore:

There was another case of murder, of a nature that rendered it one of the worst
in a community like this. Four European soldiers were charged with assaulting a
Chinaman for the sake of plunder, and with the murder of a policeman who was
endeavouring to arrest them for it. Information had been sent to the Tanglin Police
station that some soldiers were assaulting a Chinaman in the street, and four men
were sent out from the station to arrest them. They met the four soldiers, and the
soldiers ran into Mr. Gottlieb’s plantation, the policeman following them. Two of
them, Stacy and Headley, ran into a swamp, and the other two, Barden and Felton,
ran on up the hill and hid themselves in the brushwood there. The deceased and
one or two others followed them, and Mr. Gottlieb’s syce, who was with him, went
to assist in arresting them. One of the soldiers took that very formidable weapon
with which they are provided, a soldier’s belt, and struck the syce with it, inflicting
a wound in the forehead which bled profusely, and he fell back. The deceased,
however, pushed on and seized one of the men, but was beaten over the head by
one or both of them, inflicting injuries which caused his death. The main question
in this case also, was as to the identity of the prisoners; but it had been ascertained
that two of them were absent from the barracks at roll call that evening, and they
were in barracks next morning. There was one curious fact regarding the belt, that it
had a peculiar clasp called the Union clasp, part of which was missing from the belt
of one of the prisoners next morning, as would be learned from the evidence of the
non-commissioned officer who examined the accoutrements. There did not appear
to be any evidence to show that Stacy and Headley had any part in the murder,
though they had apparently with the assault upon the Chinaman; and though it was
certainly a very bad thing for soldiers who are kept here to preserve the peace of
the Settlements to commit assaults and robberies upon the people, yet it was by no
means so serious an offence as that committed by the others.⁵⁴

The soldier named Felton was convicted of the killing of the police corporal and sentenced to “penal servitude for the term of his natural life”.⁵⁵

Criminality And The Legitimation Of the Colonial State

Two passages in the extract quoted above deserve special attention: first, the newspaper’s characterisation of the nature of the murder of the Asian police corporal as one “that rendered it one of the worst in a community like this,” and secondly, the remark that “it was certainly a very bad thing for soldiers who are kept here to preserve the peace of the Settlements to commit assaults and robberies upon the people”.⁵⁶ When placed in their social and historical context, these two passages may reflect a concern for European prestige that was typical of the British inhabitants of Singapore and Malaya during the colonial era, who believed that their authority was sustained by their prestige in the eyes of the Asian population.⁵⁷ John G. Butcher has explored this topic in his fascinating book entitled The British in Malaya, 1880–1941: The Social History of a European Community in Colonial South-East Asia.⁵⁸

The concern for maintaining the prestige of the colonial order in the eyes of the Asian population was also revealed in the newspaper’s coverage of the punishment of convicted murders. In 1873, the Singapore Daily Times complained that Governor Sir Harry St. George Ord was rather reluctant to allow murderers to be executed. This topic was addressed in various issues of the paper, which suggest that the paper became increasingly disappointed with the Governor with each instance of his merciful attitude toward convicted murderers:

The Governor in Council has been deliberating over the question as to whether the
sentences of death passed on eleven prisoners during the last Criminal Session should
be carried into effect or not; and the result has been that the sentences of six of them
have been commuted to imprisonment for life, and four of the High Street robbers and
murderers will be hanged.⁵⁹

However, Governor Ord soon decided to exercise his prerogative of mercy yet again. The Singapore Daily Times reported:

A number of natives and Chinese and a few other persons assembled at Her
Majesty’s Jail this morning, to witness the execution of the four Chinese whose death
had been determined upon by the Governor in Council for the High Street robbery
and murder. … it transpired that the execution would not take place, two of the
condemned prisoners having been reprieved for one week, and two more having
had their sentences commuted.⁶⁰

The newspaper argued that firm measures were especially necessary in view of an increase in the frequency of gang robberies, asserting that the government had

shown a vacillation and want of firmness which is calculated to bring all law and
authority into contempt, and to lower the administration of justice in the eyes of
natives. … these gang robberies have become very frequent of late … An example,
therefore, would appear to be absolutely necessary, in a case like this, with evidence
against the prisoners for murder satisfactory to Judge and jury, we are at a loss to
conceive the motives which have actuated the Executive in interposing between the
law and its transgressors. The criminal classes can only come to the conclusion that
the Government is either afraid or unwilling to carry out the law ….⁶¹

However, the government was evidently not swayed by the newspaper’s argument, as indicated by the following news report: “The remaining two of the eight Chinese sentenced to death for the High Street robbery and murder, who were last Wednesday reprieved for one week, have also had their sentences commuted to imprisonment for life”.⁶² It would seem that colonial-era justice was not necessarily as harsh as might have been expected in a frontier town such as the Settlement of Singapore was at that time; indeed, Governor Sir Harry St. George Ord seems to have been a rather merciful administrator. While altruistic personal motives may well have been behind his lenient policy, it seems likely that this policy functioned to promote good public relations for the colonial state, regardless of whether or not this was his real intention. Thanks to their publicity in the press, the Governor’s acts of mercy must have contributed to an image of a humane and compassionate administration, and to the legitimation of the colonial state (as well as the British Empire to which it belonged) as a civilised and civilising entity, despite this state’s employment of representatives of the criminal element among its own soldiery and police.

Of course, the criminal activities that took place in colonial Singapore were not all of the violent type that would provoke the Singapore Daily Times to demand the swift imposition of the death penalty. Singapore had its share of nonviolent crimes, and European criminals were prominently represented in this variety of criminality as well, as illustrated in this news report of thieving soldiers in May 1873:

Michael Cunningham, Henry Reeves, and James Waugh, privates of the 1/10^th
Regiment, were arraigned on a charge of stealing two gold rings from the shop of
Lee Ching, goldsmith, in North Bridge Road. … All three then ran off into Hill Street,
where they were stopped by the patrol. … the Corporal in charge of the patrol
… said he could not arrest them, — application must be made to the police; he
would, however, be able to identify the men. The matter was reported to Inspector
Barnum, who proceeded to the barracks and had the prisoners arrested. Capt.
Walshe [the Police Magistrate] … sentenced them each to three months’ rigorous
imprisonment.⁶³

This incident suggests that the authorities faced some difficulties in the identification and apprehension of lawbreaking British soldiers, including difficulties related to problems of jurisdiction between “the patrol” versus the police. Yet, despite these difficulties, the thieving soldiers were eventually apprehended and brought to justice. The overall picture that emerges from this and other incidents that occurred in late 1872 and early 1873 is one of an imperfect yet adequate degree of colonial order that coexisted uncomfortably with an unending stream of criminality, even among some of those men in uniform who were charged with the duty of enforcing that order. Could it be that the guardians of the law and their enemies were actually locked in an eerie dialectic of order and disorder? Of course, the authorities needed to suppress crime and disorder, but perhaps they also required a certain level of crime and disorder to confirm their own reason for existence? While the colonial state legitimated itself by keeping the disorderly elements in check, the incessant presence and persistence of the threat of disorder confirmed the continual necessity of the colonial state.

“The Bearer Will Give You A Kiss For Me.”

It must not be assumed that the only disreputable Europeans in Singapore in 1872 were the criminal elements among the soldiers and sailors, such as those who joined in the Christmas celebration and subsequent fight at the Fortune of War tavern. There is also evidence that there were unruly European boarding-house residents living in Singapore, judging from a report of an incident at Mrs. Hansen’s establishment in High Street in November 1872:

The Junior Magistrate’s Court was … engaged in hearing two prosecutions for
assault … The case, briefly stated, is that on the morning of the 7th inst., at Mrs.
Hansen’s boarding house in High Street, several of the boarders came to the room
of Mr. Howard, and an assault was committed upon him and Mr. T.W. Mercer, who
was in the room. Mr. Mercer was struck in the head with a chair, and Mr. Howard
was struck and otherwise assaulted. Mr. Howard charged the assault upon himself
against five men, named Waller, Grahame, McClure, Latimer, and Mesurier, and Mr.
Mercer charged only the first three in his case. McClure had left the Colony after
being admitted to bail. The only charge against Latimer and Mesurier was that they
were present … but the evidence went to show that they acted as peacemakers
… The direct cause of the assault was a letter which had been sent by Mercer to a
young lady in the house, by the hand of a Chinese boy, bearing on the envelope the
words, ‘The bearer will give you a kiss for me.’ This letter fell into the hands of another
person, and was shown to the defendants, who resented it on the young lady’s
behalf as an insult … The Magistrate gave judgment … For the assault on Howard,
each must pay a fine of $25 … and for the assault on Mercer, a fine of $45 each …
In addition, Grahame must give bail in $100 himself, with two sureties to the same
amount, to keep the peace for six months.⁶⁴

McClure’s apparent escape from justice by means of absconding from the Straits Settlements while on bail indicates a certain degree of inefficiency on the part of the local judicial system; still, the fact that four of the five accused defendants were put on trial suggests that this system managed to function with a tolerable level of success.

T.W. Mercer not only survived being hit on the head with a chair at Mrs. Hansen’s boarding house, but he seems to have recovered quickly enough to engage in his own criminal activity soon after. According to the Singapore Daily Times:

At the Police Court, on Monday [30 December 1872], T.W. Mercer was brought before
Captain Walshe on a warrant for cheating. The prosecutor was Mr. A.H. Preston,
proprietor of the Pavilion Billiard and Bowling Saloon, who had been induced by Mr.
Mercer to give him credit ….⁶⁵

These incidents of European criminality connected with a boarding-house and a billiard and bowling saloon both suggest that there was a working-class civilian European population resident in Singapore in the early 1870s. The settings of these crimes — the boarding-house and the billiard and bowling saloon — hint that these men had sufficient incomes to rent lodgings and indulge in commercialised recreational activities, yet not enough to establish themselves in the luxurious landed properties in prestigious residential areas such as Tanglin, with which colonial Europeans may be associated today in popular images of that era.

The boarding-house inhabitants were evidently not the lowest stratum of the European civilian population then residing in the Settlement. It would seem that there were also destitute, unemployed European men living in Singapore at that time, as indicated by an item that appeared in the Singapore Daily Times when a United States Navy ship visited Singapore early in 1873:

It is rumoured on shore that the American Corvette, Lackawanna, being short of
her crew’s complement, is shipping or about to ship hands from this port. If this be
the case, we trust a little gentle persuasion will be put on any able bodied destitute
white men, who may be knocking about the Colony, to induce them to avail of
this opportunity of earning a livelihood. This will be a good chance to get rid of our
unemployed idlers.⁶⁶

Despite whatever “gentle persuasion” may have been exerted upon these “unemployed idlers,” this researcher found no evidence that any unemployed Europeans actually followed the newspaper’s advice and signed on as sailors aboard the Lackawanna. Maybe these destitute Europeans considered a life of poverty in sunny Singapore to be preferable to subjecting themselves to naval discipline aboard an American man-of-war. But, while there may have been some sort of unemployed European underclass residing here, it remains practically certain that the vast majority of working-class Europeans who landed in Singapore throughout the colonial era were soldiers and seafarers, as befit a strategic Settlement which was both a colonial garrison and an imperial port.

Singapore’s military, naval, and maritime trade functions within the British Empire ensured a continual flow of working-class European soldiers and sailors into the growing city. Although their residence here as individuals may have been temporary, their presence here as a category within the working-class population was long-term; they were, in fact, a permanent fixture of colonial Singapore, as characteristic of the place as Chinese rickshaw pullers and Japanese prostitutes. Indeed, European soldiers and sailors were here long before the first rickshaw appeared in Singapore in 1880,⁶⁷ and both before and after the heyday of Japanese prostitution in Singapore, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.⁶⁸ The membership of the local European working class and underclass deserves inclusion within colonial Singapore’s social and criminal history, in order to provide a more complete (as well as a more colourful!) picture of this multiracial island’s past.

Concluding Remarks

Starting with a Christmas celebration and a brutal killing, this account has depicted the social context of this event, moving in concentric circles outward from the Fortune of War tavern and beyond, to present a long-forgotten drama with a diverse cast of characters that included holiday revellers, an unfortunate sailor, murderous soldiers, intrepid corporals, four soldiers wanting money for a spree, a Chinese robbery victim, Chinese street fighters, gang robbers, spear-brandishing killers, Portuguese Eurasians who courageously defended the honour of their ladies, a Senior Magistrate taking an evening drive, a Consul of the German Empire, a merciful Governor, a newspaper baying for blood, and a newspaper-reading public that was evidently accustomed to a tolerable level of endemic violent crime and bloodshed. The sailor’s violent death in a barroom brawl — together with various other criminal activities that took place around the same time — highlighted the multiracial nature of the working class and underclass of colonial Singapore circa 1872.

While this essay has focused on the criminal activities of soldiers, sailors, and boarding-house inhabitants who were likely members of the British working class or underclass who were present in colonial Singapore, it should not be forgotten that there must have been many other British soldiers and sailors, as well as residents of boarding-houses on this island, who were law-abiding, and who therefore left even less footprints in the historical record. The same must certainly have been true with regard to the Chinese who made up the majority of the working-class population, as well as the Indian and Malay inhabitants of colonial Singapore; most of them must have been law-abiding, and therefore less visible historically (if not actually invisible), in the historical narrative. After all, if most of the Asian working-class people were not basically law-abiding, then the Settlement would have been totally ungovernable; indeed, it would have descended into total chaos, which would have been contrary to the interests of local Asian elites and European elites alike. Yet, given the limited information available for law-abiding working-class people in Singapore in the early 1870s, we may thus be left to rely largely upon the records of their law-breaking brethren, Asians and Europeans alike, with which we can try to gain some sense of the nature of colonial working-class life on this island.

It might not be too much of an exaggeration to conclude that the lives of working-class Asians and Europeans in colonial Singapore are largely invisible in the historical record, except for when they engaged in criminal activities, and, in some cases at least, when they died. James Francis Warren has shown how the Coroner’s Records of colonial Singapore, which are available for the years from 1883 to 1940, can shed a great deal of light on the lives and deaths of working-class people, by providing historians with rich sources of information.⁶⁹ For the years prior to 1883, the crime reports published in the local newspapers may help to fill in some of the gaps, as the preceding pages have endeavoured to demonstrate.

On the other hand, in contrast to the relative dearth of information on working-class people, the colonialera newspapers contain a great deal of information on the social and public activities of Asian and European elites, including their participation together in spectacular public celebrations and elite social functions. Still, there is at least one point of commonality between the colonial elite class and the criminal element of the working class: both were cosmopolitan, in the sense of having been characterised by racial and ethnic diversity. The multiracial character of the underclass parallelled the similarly multiracial nature of the upper or elite class: Asians and Europeans alike were well represented among both the most respectable and the most disreputable elements of this colonial society, and probably at every social stratum in between. These facts drive home the point that the cosmopolitan population of this island was characterised at least as much by class divisions as it was by racial identities, and that these class divisions transcended the racial and ethnic categories within the population.

Asians and Europeans alike were members of the underclass and the working class here, as well as the middle class and the elite class.⁷⁰ Studies of the social history of colonial Singapore (and probably of other colonial societies as well) should endeavour to avoid the temptation of simplistically reducing or essentialising the local population and its experiences into racial or ethnic blocs. To echo a point which David Cannadine has made in his book Ornamentalism, the concept of class was at least as important as race within the history of the British Empire — and this may well have been true with regard to other empires, too.⁷¹ At the top of the social hierarchy of colonial Singapore was a multiracial elite class, within which political power was officially controlled by a few Europeans, but the bulk of the wealth and property was apparently controlled by Asian elites. At the base of the social pyramid was a multiracial underclass which included European soldiers and sailors, as well as Chinese labourers and Malay and Indian policemen. The criminal element within this underclass was kept in check by the enforcers of the colonial system, including European soldiers and Asian policemen, but some of these uniformed enforcers were themselves prone to violence and crime.

The diverse elements of this colonial society coexisted in an uneasy yet manageable equilibrium that provided the setting for the continued economic and social success of the wealthy Asians and their European co-elites who together comprised the colonial elite class, while the continuity of the economic success of the Settlement legitimised the social and political system. The continual, even routine, incidence of violent crime in Singapore provided a constant reminder of the necessity of the colonial state as a bulwark against disorder; and the reliable success of this state in keeping crime and disorder down to a manageable level justified the continuity of the state and contributed to the legitimation of the British Empire.

The colonial state in Singapore provided an adequate degree of order and stability with a minimum of force, despite often suffering from limited resources and numbers of personnel, from 1819 until it was conquered by the Imperial Japanese Army in 1942. In 1870, there were a total of 744 soldiers of the British Empire in Singapore, including 138 Royal Artillery gunners, 326 European infantrymen, and 280 Madras Native Infantry soldiers,⁷² while the local police force had a total strength of 550 in the 1870s, mainly Malays and Indians.⁷³ Despite its limitations and shortcomings, the colonial order here was sufficiently adequate to serve British interests, while enriching an opulent class of locally-domiciled Asian plutocrats, supporting a prosperous local Asian middle class, and attracting large numbers of working-class Asian migrants, who voted with their feet by leaving their homelands behind to set out across the seas for Singapore.

Most of the Europeans who set foot on Singapore soil during the colonial era must have been soldiers and sailors; indeed, most of the Europeans who lived here for any length of time during that era were probably the British soldiers who were garrisoned here at Tanglin Barracks and other places on this island. Yet most of them left almost no trace in the published histories of Singapore — and, it would seem that they left few footprints in the written records, such as the contemporary newspapers. Only when they disgraced themselves and dishonoured their professions by committing crimes did they find their way into the newspapers — but even then, their activities and their presence were apparently, for the most part at least, deemed too unimportant or unremarkable to deserve attention in historical accounts, with a few notable exceptions, such as the excellent recent military history of Singapore entitled Between Two Oceans⁷⁴ and the personal memoirs of armed forces personnel who served here during World War Two. Such exceptions aside, the relatively small number of Europeans who comprised the usual cast of characters in the historical narrative of colonial Singapore was merely a privileged minority within a local European population, which was itself a tiny minority within the mostly Chinese population of multiracial Singapore. According to the 1871 Census, this island had a total population of 97,111, including 54,098 Chinese, 19,250 Malays, 9,297 “Klings or Natives of Southern India,” 1,925 “Europeans and Americans,” and 1,414 “Native Prisoners,” as well as “Bugis, Boyanese and others”.⁷⁵

It was not the skin colour of these Europeans that determined their prominence or absence in the documentary record and the historical narrative, nor was it their nationality; the British soldiers and sailors who brawled in the Fortune of War tavern were likely just as European and just as “white” as any of the Europeans here. What distinguished the Europeans who were remembered from those who were quickly forgotten was their social class or status within the local social structure. Likewise, wealthy local Chinese elites and other Asian elites of the colonial era were (and still are) celebrated and remembered in print and in the names of streets and places, while the working-class masses of the Chinese majority were largely forgotten, at least until James Francis Warren painstakingly recovered the details of their lives from the crumbling pages of the coroners’ records.

The Christmas bloodshed in 1872 reveals the underside of celebratory activity, the potential for violence inherent in the combination of alcohol and weapons, and soldiers and sailors, even at Christmas. Evidence from public celebrations, as from a Christmas celebration in Tanjong Pagar that turned ugly, offer opportunities to learn not only about the activities of elites, but of working-class and underclass people as well. The preceding pages give some idea of the wealth of information on the social history of Singapore which may be found in the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library in the National Library Building, where the collections housed within the soaring halls of this futuristic structure contain tragic tales of brutal crimes that were committed when Singapore was a frontier Settlement, on a par with the Wild West.

The author wishes to acknowledge the contributions of Dr Ernest C.T. Chew, Associate Senior Fellow, ISEAS, in reviewing this paper.