Ep. 352 | The History of Singapore (Part 4)

The China History Podcast

Part 4 continues with the aftermath of the 1824 Treaty of London. John Crawfurd takes over from a disgraced William Farquhar as First Resident. Singapore commences its never-ending building and infrastructure process. The Straits Settlements are created in 1826. With a spike in labor demand and with slavery recently abolished, the East India Company comes up with a novel solution. Up in Johor, Daing Ibrahim takes over as the new Temenggong and becomes a ruler that the East India Company can work with. The majority Teochew and Hokkien communities start to organize around their own community leaders. Gutta-Percha is discovered and for the first time Singapore gets to surf a nice wave of prosperity as this raw material’s discovery coincides with a massive demand from a new technological innovation. Alongside all this growth in commerce emerges several secret societies who, like their overseas counterparts, provide a mixture of good and evil across Chinese society. Tin is discovered in 1848 in Perak State. Singapore gets a piece of this action as well. With the EIC’s fortunes sinking, Singapore’s leaders start to lobby Parliament in London for Crown Colony status and to scrape the despised East India Company management from the bottom of their shoe. Communal strife starts to break out with regularity. This will continue in various forms all the way into the 20th century. We close things out by presenting the life and career of William A. Pickering, an extraordinary person in his day.

I invite you to support me and my work by subscribing to my Patreon Page at https://www.patreon.com/c/TheChinaHistoryPodcast You’ll get all these episodes long before they’re released to the podcasting public. I also produce occasional bonus content. I don’t post too much to social media. But I am extremely active chit-chatting with Patreon members and CHP friends of the show all day and night on the Patreon site, on WeChat, WhatsApp, email, Signal, and a bunch of other platforms. Thanks for considering.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices