Major-General William Farquhar (b. 26 February 1774, Newhall, Kincardineshire, Scotland–d. 11 May 1839, Perth, Scotland) was the first British Resident and Commandant of Singapore from 1819 to 1823. In January 1819, Farquhar accompanied Sir Stamford Raffles on ...
Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (b. 6 July 1781, off Port Morant, Jamaica–d. 5 July 1826, Middlesex, England) is known as the founder of modern Singapore. Besides signing the treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor on 6 February 1819 that gave the British East India ...
Stamford Raffles landed in Singapore on 28 January 1819. Travelling on the Indiana with a squadron that included the schooner Enterprise, he anchored at St John’s Island at 4.00 pm on 28 January 1819 and met with Temenggong Abdul Rahman. The site on the Singapore ...
The fraternal society known as Freemasonry began in Singapore on 8 December 1845 with the establishment of Lodge Zetland in the East, now Singapore’s oldest surviving Freemason lodge. Its members are called Freemasons or Masons, and belong to lodges or temples. ...
Gaston Dutronquoy was a prominent hotelier and entrepreneur in Singapore during the 1840s and early 1850s. He was also the island's first recorded resident photographer. A native of Jersey in the Channel Islands, off the coast of France, he first arrived in Singapore ...
Mount Faber is located in the Bukit Merah area in the central region of Singapore. Standing at 106 m above sea level, it was originally known as Telok Blangah Hill. It was renamed Mount Faber in July 1845 after Charles Edward Faber of the Madras Engineers, who ...
Thian Hock Keng is Singapore’s oldest Hokkien temple. Located at 158 Telok Ayer Street, it is recognised as the most majestic Chinese temple in Singapore. It was designed and built in 1842 by skilled craftsmen from China according to traditional Chinese temple ...
The Armenian Apostolic Church of St Gregory the Illuminator is located at 60 Hill Street. Completed by March 1836, the Armenian Church is the oldest surviving church building in Singapore. It was designed and built by colonial architect G. D. Coleman in 1835, with ...
The Jewish community has been in Singapore since the early years of British colonisation, and has contributed significantly to Singapore’s development as a nation.
The Cathedral of the Good Shepherd stands at the junction of Queen Street and Bras Basah Road. Built between 1843 and 1847, it is the oldest surviving Catholic church in Singapore. The Cathedral was gazetted as a national monument on 28 June 1973.
Samsui women, also known as hong tou jin (红头巾; Mandarin for “red headscarf”) after their trademark red headgear, were female immigrants mainly from the Sanshui (“Samsui” in Cantonese; meaning “three waters”) district of Canton (Guangdong today) province in southern ...
G. D. (George Dromgold) Coleman (b. 1795, Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland–d. 27 March 1844, Singapore) was Singapore’s pioneer colonial architect. He became the first Government Superintendent of Public Works when he was appointed in 1833. Coleman planned, surveyed ...
The Hokkien-Teochew Riots, also known as the Great Riots of 1854 or the Five Catties of Rice Riots, began on 5 May 1854. The riots stemmed from conflicts between the Hokkien and Teochew communities in Singapore. It was also suggested that secret societies were ...
Hajjah Fatimah Mosque is located along Beach Road in the historic Kampong Glam area. Built between 1845 and 1846, the mosque was named after Hajjah Fatimah, a wealthy businesswoman. It is one of the few mosques in Singapore to be named after a female benefactor. ...
Amoy Street in Chinatown begins at the junction of McCallum Street, and Telok Ayer Street and ends at Pekin Street. Developed in the 1830s, the street was probably named after the migrants who came from Amoy in China.
Tan Che Sang (b.1763, Fujian, China–d. 2 April 1835, Singapore) was one of the earliest merchants from Malacca to come to Singapore when Stamford Raffles set up a British settlement in Singapore in 1819. A tycoon known for his addiction to gambling, Tan’s prominence ...
Sultan Hussein Mohamed Shah (b. 1776–d. 5 September 1835, Malacca) or Tengku Long (or Sulong, which means eldest in Malay) or Tengku Hussein, was the eldest son of Sultan Mahmud Shah (b. 1761 – d. 14 January 1811, Lingga), the last Sultan of the Johore-Riau-Lingga ...
Temenggung Abdul Rahman (d. 8 December 1825, Singapore), also known as Dato’ Temenggung Seri Maharaja Abdul Rahman or Engku Abdul Rahman, was the first Malay chief with whom the British discussed the establishment of a British settlement in Singapore before the ...
CHIJMES was originally known as the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ), which was a premier girls’ school established in 1854 by an order of French Catholic nuns. It was originally located within a self-contained city block bound by Victoria Street, Bras Basah ...
An ancient relic, the Singapore Stone is a slab of sandstone that was a large boulder discovered in June 1819 in Singapore. It was blown up in 1843 to widen the mouth of the Singapore River. It features a yet-to-be-deciphered ancient script that points to a possible ...