One of a Kind (2nd Edition)

A HISTORY LESSON THE FIRST BATCH DID NOT GET

ONE

personnel or ammunition. As Singapore developed, garrison troops were drawn from the

British Indian Army or British regiments and elements of the Royal Artillery (RA).

From Buckley’s anecdotes, from the beginning, the expatriate community itself in Singapore

were concerned with threats to themselves from both Chinese immigrants and Malay pirates

and agitated for the island’s administrators to provide suitable defences against such threats.

But although the British tended to separate police powers from the military, there seemed to

have been a sense that the police could handle internal security if they were augmented by

garrison troops. In the early decades of Singapore’s founding, a small police element working

with magistrates would seem to have been considered adequate. The attitude probably derived

from the fact that the island was ruled by a military governor who could activate any process he

deemed fit to protect the European community, such as calling out the military to quell civil riots.

Nevertheless, the availability of additional resources was not guaranteed and the expatriates in

Singapore in the 1840s and 1850s decided it was prudent to take a proactive role in their own

self-defence. Matters came to a head on 5

May, 1854 when violence broke out between the

Teochew and Hokkien communities, ostensibly over an argument concerning an underweight

‘Kati’ of rice, but actually over issues rooted in China. Rioting flared out of control the next

day and the deployment of troops and Marines (quartered aboard a naval vessel on station in

the Singapore harbour) brought only temporary peace along their immediate line of advance.

When it became clear that the police were too thinly spread, several expatriates mounted their

own patrols or complemented the police patrols in the worst affected areas. The violence only

abated after some 400 deaths and the burning of about 300 ‘native’ houses.

Successful Asians had begun to make significant contributions to social causes early in the

island’s development. These included Tan Tock Seng who funded a pauper’s hospital in 1844,

Hoo Ah Kay (Whampoa), who was appointed a member of the Legislative Council in 1869 and

Cheang Hong Lim, who contributed a public garden in Chinatown in 1876. But the expatriates

regarded themselves an exclusive ruling class in Singapore until the mid-twentieth century. In

response to what they saw as inadequate steps by the colonial administrators to provide for the

ever-present possibility that the native population could run amok, they felt they should have

a contingency to mobilise and arm themselves as necessary. The 1854 rioting by the Chinese

triggered the creation of a Singapore Volunteer Rifle Corps (SVRC), which Governor W.J.

Butterworth duly authorised, with the prior endorsement of Bengal. The Volunteer movement

endured, though through many metamorphoses, eventually spreading to the other Straits

Settlements and the Malay states. Obviously, it provided a venue for members to hobnob

with the upper crust and to see and be seen by the British royalty who occasionally visited

the Colony. It was an opportunity to pick up a medal or two by way of recognition. The

duties were not especially onerous, being mostly weapons training, weekend camps, snipe

II. THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT IN SINGAPORE