One Hundred Years' History Of The Chinese In Singapore: The Annotated Edition. Ong Siang Song

and gaudy trinkets dear to the heart of the savage. He contracted illness in the jungle and died at an early age. Mr Chun Fook entered the service of Mr Whampoa at the age of 17 and at Mr Whampoa’s death in 1880 he managed the various activities of ‘Whampoa & Co’ along with the eldest son, Hoo Ah Yip, to whom reference [113] has already been made. In 1906 he left the firm after forty years’ service and started business on his own account. He was a jolly character, and always preferred to look at the comic side of things. He was a popular man and always kindly disposed towards the poor. In 1885 he was appointed on the Committee of the Po Leung Kuk and in 1890 was given a seat on the Chinese Advisory Board. He was made a JP in 1916. He died on the 23rd August 1919, and during the later years of his life he was a firm believer in spiritualism, devoting much of his time to the study of the spirit world.⁵¹

      1According to Phyllis Ghim Lian Chew, A Sociolinguistic History of Early Identities in Singapore: From Colonialism to Nationalism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), Song Hoot Kiam (1830–1900) the father of Song Ong Siang, the author of One Hundred Years’ History of the Chinese in Singapore, was displayed as a ‘Christian’ and ‘reported to speak English perfectly’. Song’s new-found faith led him to reject his parents’ choice of a non-Christian girl. Instead he married Yeo Choon Neo, a well-educated Straits Chinese girl, a union which is regarded as the start of the oldest Straits Chinese Christian family in Singapore. Influenced by his wife’s mentor, the headmistress of the Singapore Chinese Girls’ School, Miss Grant, Song took on a position as a teacher at the Singapore Free School. Although Song did not turn to full-time Christian work as Legge had hoped, he remained highly regarded for his Christian work, serving alongside Benjamin Keasberry at the Straits Chinese Church at Prinsep Street.

      2On James Legge, see Helen Edith Legge, James Legge, Missionary and Scholar (London: Religious Tract Society, 1905); and NJ Girardot, The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge’s Oriental Pilgrimage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).

      3[Song: James Legge, by Miss HE Legge (1905)]. Helen Edith Legge, James Legge, Missionary and Scholar (London: Religious Tract Society, 1905), at 52.

      4Ibid, at 56.

      5Ibid.

      6On Tan Kong Wee, see Chapter 4, n 32.

      7Ibid, at 52.

      8[Song: Vol IV (December 1900)].

      9(1900) Straits Chinese Magazine.

      10See ‘The Visit of the Governor-General’ Singapore Free Press, 5 Mar 1850, at 1.

      11Also spelt ‘Ung Choon Seng’ (see Straits Times, 25 Nov 1851, at 5) or ‘Ung Choon Sing’ (see ‘Address from the Inhabitants’ Singapore Free Press, 5 Dec 1851, at 6).

      12See ‘Singapore’ The South Australian, 9 Jul 1850, at 3.

      13[Song: Prisoners Their Own Warders]. See, J Frederick Adolphus McNair, Prisoners Their Own Warders: A History of the Convict Establishments at Bencoolen, Penang and Malacca from the Year 1797 (Westmister: A Constable & Co, 1899), at 68.

      14According to Kua Bak Lim, Wan was born in 1834. See (Singapore: EPB, 1995), at 10.

      15‘Address from the Inhabitants’ Singapore Free Press, 5 Dec 1851, at 6.

      16A strong believer of western supremacy in every sense, Lord Dalhousie’s administration marked the expansion of British Indian territories and the introduction of reforms and constructive activities. Dalhousie fought the Second Sikh War (1848–49) and annexed the Punjab. He annexed a portion of Sikkim in 1850 and towards the end of 1852 his army fought the Second Burmese War and conquered lower Burma. See Suresh Chandra Ghosh, ‘The Utilitarianism of Dalhousie and the Material Improvement of India’ (1978) 12(1) Modern Asian Studies 97–110.

      17On Sophia Cooke, see Chapter 4, n 28.

      18See ‘Old Times in Singapore’ Singapore Free Press, 19 Jun 1886, at 7.

      19Aged 22, William Henry Read travelled to Singapore to take his father’s place at AL Johnston & Company, Singapore’s leading merchant company at that time, his father retiring and returning to England the following year (1842). Read was highly active in social and public affairs, and commercial life. He was also a generous donor to education, religious and social institutions. He was one of the early political agitators for the transfer of the Straits Settlements from British India control, to the Colonial Office in London. CB Buckley, An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore (Singapore: Fraser & Neave, 1902), at 367.

      20While it was believed that the Ghee Hin secret society was involved in mobilising Chinese opposition to the new sub-post office, not all secret society members were party to the violence. Chua Moh Choon, headman of the Ghee Hock society, instead helped to persuade the rioters to desist. See Straits Times Overland Report