A Splendid Little Colony: British Singapore 1819 - 1963


Three generations of “Peranakan” ladies.


Postcard of South Bridge Road in 1907. The building on the right with two towers is the Jamae Mosque, built in 1826; on the same row in the background is the Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple, built in 1827. Remarkably, the street today still looks very similar.

Source: Author’s collection
The lady on the left is Phua Geok Kee, the author’s grandmother. She was born in Padang, on the Dutch East Indies island of Sumatra. She came over to Singapore as a young girl of around ten.


A Splendid Little Colony: British Singapore 1819 - 1963 | Singapore


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by Stephen
Luscombe