Visiting the ‘Liverpool of the East’: Singapore's place in tours of Empire

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 562-578
Author(s):  
Donna Brunero
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Port City ◽  
Maritime Empire

This article explores the idea of Singapore's repute as the ‘Liverpool of the East’ and the depictions of Britain's maritime empire in Asia. It does so via two important cruises related to the British Empire. The first is the Royal Tour of 1901 and the second cruise was the Empire Cruise of 1923 to 1924. By examining the reception afforded to both royal and naval visitors, this article argues that we have insights into what it meant for Singapore as a port city in a British maritime and imperial network. This article explores how Singapore was depicted as a maritime hub through these tours and concludes with a reflection that similar descriptions still hold a place in modern descriptions of Singapore.

The Triumph of the New Toryism and the Spirit of the Second British Empire

2019 ◽  
pp. 201-231
Author(s):  
James M. Vaughn
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
South Asia ◽  
British Empire ◽  
General Trend ◽  
Political Order ◽  
National Unity ◽  
The One ◽  
Maritime Empire

This chapter details events that occurred between the 1760s and 1770s. During this period, the oligarchic order largely supported the New Tory imperialism, which laid down the foundations of the Second British Empire. However, this general trend was briefly interrupted in July 1766 with the formation of the Chatham administration. William Pitt, now the Earl of Chatham, regained power and set out to create a national unity government similar to the one he had led with the Duke of Newcastle in the late 1750s. The radicals allied with the Chatham ministry advocated a range of measures designed to transform the oligarchic order and the British Empire. While the New Tories were committed to preserving the unreformed and landed parliamentary state and consolidating an autocratic and tributary empire in North America and South Asia, radical Whigs wanted to reform the parliamentary political order and to expand Britain's maritime “empire of liberty.”

‘The Modern Magic Carpet’: Wireless radio in interwar colonial Singapore

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHUA AI LIN
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Short Wave ◽  
Imagined Communities ◽  
Port City ◽  
Global History ◽  
The Public ◽  
Wave Radio ◽  
Radio Broadcasting ◽  
History Of

AbstractWireless radio broadcasting in colonial Singapore began with amateur organizations in the early 1920s, followed by commercial ventures and, finally, the establishment of a monopoly state broadcasting station. Listeners followed local broadcasting as well as international short wave radio. Both participants in and the content of radio reflected the multiracial, cosmopolitan make-up of a colonial port city which functioned through the lingua franca of English. The manner in which early broadcasting developed in Singapore sheds light on the creation of different imagined communities and the development of civil society. There was an increasing presence of non-Europeans, women, and youth, many of whom were drawn by the mystique of this new technology. Wireless radio also brought about a transformation in the public soundscape. These themes contribute to our understanding of the global history of radio as well as the nature of colonial societies within the British empire.

‘A young slip of botany’: botanical networks, the South Atlantic, and Britain’s maritime worlds,c.1790–1810

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
John McAleer
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
South Atlantic ◽  
The South ◽  
Cape Of Good Hope ◽  
Network Building ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
St Helena ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Patterns Of Interaction ◽  
Maritime Empire

AbstractThis article explores the relationship between science and empire, through the prism of British botanical engagement with the South Atlantic in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It investigates the logistics of plant exchanges, as information, expertise, and specimens followed the maritime contours of the British empire. The discussion traces the nascent network-building undertaken by officials, residents, and visitors on St Helena and at the Cape of Good Hope, and the exchange of plant specimens with London and, crucially, with other places around the empire. The article suggests that such activities offer perspectives on wider patterns of interaction with an area located at the crossroads of Britain’s maritime empire. In time, the region forged its own botanical networks and created alternative axes of exchange, association, and movement.

An imperial harbinger: Sylvester O’Halloran’s General history (1778)

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (155) ◽  
pp. 357-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire E. Lyons
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Source Materials ◽  
A Current ◽  
Maritime Empire

Abstract This article investigates the antiquarian response to the opportunity for Irish Catholic relief during the Anglo–American crisis and views Sylvester O’Halloran’s General history as an innovative attempt to initiate Irish Catholic participation in the British empire predicated on a historic and current fittingness. The London publication of the General history indicated that this work was directed at an audience outside of, as well as within, Ireland. An investigation of the subscription-list confirms that that audience consisted of members of Britain’s political élite and successful émigré Irishmen in the service of European Catholic powers. The narrative analysis, when compared with its principal sources, Keating’s seventeenth-century Foras feasa ar Éirinn and the twelfth-century Lebor gabála Érenn, shows that O’Halloran altered his source materials to construct an historical picture of a Milesian maritime empire. O’Halloran’s argument for Catholic inclusion in the British empire was twofold. He altered his source material to suggest an ancient parity with the contemporary British empire to demonstrate an Irish historical fittingness for an imperial role, while his subscription-list confirmed a current aptitude. This argument was directed at and partly endorsed by another section of the subscription-list, London’s political élite.

Meteorology in the British Empire

1905 ◽  
Vol 59 (1521supp) ◽  
pp. 24373-24374
Author(s):  
John Eliot
Keyword(s):  
British Empire

Policing the British Empire on the Bund: The Origin of the Sikh Police Unit in Shanghai

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-73
Author(s):  
Cao Yin
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Imperial History ◽  
Municipal Police ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
British Colonies ◽  
Modern Shanghai

Red-turbaned Sikh policemen have long been viewed as symbols of the cosmopolitan feature of modern Shanghai. However, the origin of the Sikh police unit in the Shanghai Municipal Police has not been seriously investigated. This article argues that the circulation of police officers, policing knowledge, and information in the British colonial network and the circulation of the idea of taking Hong Kong as the reference point amongst Shanghailanders from the 1850s to the 1880s played important role in the establishment of the Sikh police force in the International Settlement of Shanghai. Furthermore, by highlighting the translocal connections and interactions amongst British colonies and settlements, this study tries to break the metropole-colony binary in imperial history studies.

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