The Raffles Museum in the Shift from Nature to Culture

by

Semine Long-Callesen

BA in Art History University of Cambridge, 2018

Submitted to the Department of Architecture in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Architecture Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

May 2020

© 2020 Semine Long-Callesen. All rights reserved.

The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created.

Signature of Author: ______Department of Architecture May 8, 2020

Certified by: ______Arindam Dutta, PhD Associate Professor of Architectural History Thesis Supervisor

Accepted by: ______Leslie K. Norford Professor of Building Technology Chair, Department Committee on Graduate Students

Committee

Arindam Dutta, PhD Associate Professor of Architectural History Advisor

Timothy Hyde, MArch, PhD Associate Professor of Architecture Reader

2

The Raffles Museum in the Shift from Nature to Culture

by

Semine Long-Callesen

Submitted to the Department of Architecture on May 8, 2020 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Architecture Studies

Abstract

This thesis examines the formation of a national culture through the case study of the Raffles Museum in the late 1950s. Today, the institution is known as the National Museum of . In contrast to what we might assume from the museum’s current status, it was not obvious that the museum would become a “cultural,” “national,” and “Singaporean” institution. The Raffles Museum was established in the early nineteenth century and was instrumental in the British colonial search for revenue and resources. In collecting specimens and samples, the museum invented Malaya’s distinctive “nature.” Importantly, the natural history collections included anthropological and archaeological artifacts. In the early twentieth century, such objects were extracted and separated from the category of natural history to aid the colonial administration in defining a distinctive Malayan “culture,” which served governmental purposes. During the period of , the colonial notion of “Malaya” – and its nature and culture – was adopted by anti-colonial nationalism. The Raffles Museum became part of the endeavor of transforming the synthetic colonial category of “Malaya” into one of national self-determination. The Raffles Museum simultaneously created, destroyed, and preserved Malaya’s nature and culture. The museum blurred the lines between the colonial and national, the natural and cultural, the British Malayan and Malayan, taxonomy and preservation, the traditional and modern, the exterior world and the inside of the museum, and other and self. What eventually became Singapore’s national culture was initially Malayan, colonial, and natural.

Thesis Advisor: Arindam Dutta Associate Professor of Architectural History

3

Table of Contents Acknowledgements 5 The Raffles Museum in the Shift from Nature to Culture 6 1. From Colonial to Nationalist Malaya 13 2. From Nature to Culture 33 3. Preserving Malaya’s Nature 54 Conclusion 73 Bibliography 76 Figures 83

4 Acknowledgments

Thank you, Arindam Dutta, for encouraging me to trust my voice; Timothy Hyde, for thinking with me about historic change and continuity; and Caroline A. Jones and Nasser Rabbat, for our formative talks about my research direction. Thanks also to Elizabeth Fox at the MIT Writing Center for consistently supporting me during my time at MIT.

Thank you to the staff at the National Library, the National Museum, and the National Archives, who guided me during my fieldwork in Singapore. In particular, Stephanie Yeo, Chor Koon Tan, Mr. Lim, and Iskander Mydin, you hosted me with generous hospitality.

My deepest thanks to my MIT family: Zainab Taymuree, Nancy Valladeres, Ayesha Shaikh, Rachel Hirsch, and Rodrigo Escandón Cesarman.

Og selvfølgelig til dig, Seh Ghee, fordi vi gør alting sammen.

5 The Raffles Museum in the Shift from Nature to Culture

The Raffles Museum was founded in the early nineteenth century on the island of Singapore, located at the tip of the Malay peninsula. The museum was established by British officers as part of the colonial search for revenue potential, a search that prompted the collection of natural history such as specimens of botany and minerals [Fig. 1]. In the nineteenth century, the museum space functioned primarily as a site of scientific experimentation and object collection that served the industrial demands of the . Moreover, the museum was part of a larger colonial infrastructure that eventually created Malaya’s distinct “nature”: the artifacts and samples rendered the colonized territory readable and governmental to civil servants.

Christopher Hooi served as curator of the Raffles Museum in the years 1957-1967 and was director of the museum in the period of 1973-1983. During his position at the museum, Hooi witnessed significant changes within and outside the institution. Colonial officers had initially named the natural history collection after Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the British East

Company official who supposedly founded Singapore in 1819. In 1960, however, a few years after Hooi’s appointment, Raffles’ surname was abandoned and the museum was renamed the

National Museum, a change that announced the conversion of the colonial institution into a national one.

On a state level, Hooi’s career overlapped with Singapore’s long-term transition from

British colony to independent nation. This transformation materialized in numerous phases, one of which was the attainment of full self-government in 1959. While Singapore had been a Crown

Colony of its own since 1946, historically, the island had formed part of the British Straits

Settlements and British Malaya. Indeed, Singapore had long been imagined as part of a greater

Malaya by both colonial officers and local nationalists. Thus, before Singapore became an

6 independent national entity in the region of in 1965, the island was part of various territorial imaginations, not least that of Malaya.

Hooi was among the first two local civil servants to be appointed as senior museum staff.

His position at the museum was facilitated by the “Malayanisation” scheme, a political program that advocated for the inclusion of locals in the civil service. As the name suggests,

“Malayanisation” was conceived during the period when Singapore was conceptualized as part of Malaya prior to the separation of the two territories. While Hooi entered the museum by way of “Malayanisation,” he nevertheless insists on claiming the museum as a national Singaporean one. Looking back at his career at the museum, Hooi describes the institution as a “repository of the nation’s heritage”: to him, the museum always reflected the soul of the Singaporean nation.1

However, keeping the shifting territorial affiliations in mind, the Raffles Museum translates directly into neither a “Singaporean” collection nor a “national” one. Quite the contrary to

Hooi’s statement, it was not obvious that the Raffles Museum would become a national museum.

Hooi’s assertion then urges the question: what does it mean to say “national”?

This study of the Raffles Museum during the late colonial period underlines a shift from

“colonial” to “national” and from “nature” to “culture.” The thesis reveals a genealogy of the national as one that is rooted in colonial imaginations. Further, the collection’s shifting geographic associations suggests that nothing is inherently “British,” “Malayan,” “Singaporean,” or “Malaysian”: the category of the “national” is an unstable one. Indeed, most of the museum’s objects do not “belong” to the territory of Singapore as the boundaries look today. The artifacts

1 Christopher Hooi, From the oral history interview of Christopher Hooi. Accession No. 001382, reel 4., 1992, Oral History Centre, National Archives of Singapore.

7 were largely collected in the Malay peninsula and not on the island of Singapore: the Malay peninsula provided the island’s natural and cultural contents.

Another fact unsettles Hooi’s nationalist claims to the museum: the Raffles Museum presents a largely randomly assembled collection. The museum aspired to reflect Malaya comprehensively, yet this encyclopedic endeavor was rarely achieved. The museum collection suffered from constant shortage of staff and funds. Further, the collections were formed by colonial officers, amateur “experts,” and eccentric individuals whose collecting patterns were determined by their respective hobbies as much as they were determined by commercial commissions to collect samples of seeds and soil. The objects were not systematically assembled but rather extracted from territories based on accessibility: the location of British settlements in

Malaya dictated the destination of collecting parties. Thus, the coming into being of the museum suggests a somewhat accidental visual creation of British Malaya from which Singapore ultimately emerged. Despite the arbitrariness of the accumulated artifacts, colonial officers entrusted the objects with reflecting a truth: the collection supposedly represented the “real” colonized territory. This “reality” was supported by the science of taxidermy and the collection’s taxonomic organization, which made claims to realistic and comprehensive representations of

Malaya.

The exhibits in the Raffles Museum were initially imagined as natural objects. All objects

– archaeological, ethnographic, botanical, geological, etc. – were defined as belonging to natural history and part of the “natural” world. As the need to define who was governed and colonized changed, so changed the “truth” reflected by the collections. In the early twentieth century, the administrative necessity to distinguish the colonizer from the colonized prompted a shift in grouping: the natural objects were divided into two categories, one of nature and one of culture.

8 This change manifested itself in the museum over a long period. In the 1920s, new galleries were set up devoted to archaeology as a discipline separate from those of the natural sciences. In 1949, the shift was further marked by the subdivision of the curator position into one of anthropology and one of zoology. Exhibits of nature were transformed into exhibits of culture: what was once conceived as part of the natural realm entered the realm of culture. While this transformation reflected a colonial desire to better understand the colonized for governmental purposes, this shift also prepared “nature” – a colonial resource – to be transferred to the new nation as a resource of culture. Indeed, the conversion of the colonial museum into a national one expanded

Malayan sovereignty into the area of culture. In this process of transforming the colonial into the national, the concept of preservation played a crucial role.

One year after the first elections for self-government in 1955, the Raffles Museum invited a UNESCO expert to advise it on international museum standards. UNESCO introduced preservation practices, which encouraged the safeguarding and continuation of the museum’s colonial notions of nature and culture. The museum was turned into a symbol of an exterior world that was disappearing: its collections represented a nostalgia for an authentic nature and culture, which were threatened by modernity and its industries. Of course, itself – another face of the “modern” – had enabled this very destruction of its own natural and cultural imaginaries. While this nature and culture had existed solely as colonial fictions, the museum became a mirror and protector of its own creations: only within the museum could a “pure” nature and culture persist.

The Raffles Museum had participated in defining hitherto disparate peoples and geographies with the administrative category of “Malaya,” the British synthetic unification of its territories. The case of the late colonial museum underlines that the victorious anti-colonial

9 nationalism presented not an opposition to colonialism but rather a transition into a nationalism that shared colonial perceptions of its territory’s nature and culture. Indeed, as the colonial specificity of the region grew “thicker,” so did the claim to national distinction. To colonial civil servants and officers, the collection confirmed who and what were governed. To anti-colonial politicians, the collection reflected a “self” that was distinct from that of the colonizer. The category of Malaya was adopted by nationalism. Thus, the anti-colonial need to distinguish itself from the colonizer was founded on the colonizer’s definition of the colonized. The preservation of Malayan distinctiveness as national culture allowed for colonial perceptions of land and peoples to continue.

Internationalist preservation practices enabled the Raffles Museum to become a guardian of its own inventions. As modernity outside the walls of the museum made vanish the

“authentic” nature and culture, preservation efforts crafted the “real” inside the museum. Thus, the internationalist urge to preserve allowed for colonial constructions of nature and culture to stand as national truths. The museum “museumized” a self that was founded on colonial perceptions of the region’s nature and culture.

In this thesis, the Raffles Museum is more than a building: it serves as a complicated conceptual object with which nation formation and decolonization can be scrutinized. The museum does not fit a single discursive model but contains numerous “museological” dimensions. On the one hand, the thesis’ institutional protagonist was ruled by a classificatory system and government-directed intention. It was a physical space with carefully designed displays and pedagogies. On the other hand, it was an idiosyncratic collection that was accidentally assembled. It was a haphazard collage of specimens and personalities steered by amateurism and ad hoc-ism more so than deliberate attempts to “fill out” gaps in the collection.

10 The concrete space had limited capacities and was constantly rearranged and re-built. The

Raffles Museum was a highly contingent and contradictory institution, and perhaps only continuous and coherent by name. What the collections represented and to whom was constantly changing.

The thesis is divided into three chapters. The three chapters describe not a historic progression but three distinct conceptual imaginaries and museum practices, which co-existed in the same space at the same time. Chapter One examines the historiography of Singapore and Malaya. The chapter highlights the genealogy of “Malaya” as something that once was a colonial administrative category and later was adopted into anti-colonial . It explores how the

Ministry of Culture and the Raffles Museum contributed to the forging of a nationalist Malayan culture in the late 1950s. Chapter Two examines the history of the museum in the light of colonialism and its creation of “nature.” The chapter underlines the idiosyncratic bureaucracy of the museum and explores the long-term shift from nature to culture. Chapter Three examines the museum’s preservation of imaginations of nature and culture. The chapter emphasizes that the museum came to represent what it invented: the museum contained its own imagined nature and culture. The internationalist preservation practice enabled colonial fictions to continue into the national, cementing them as “real” in the national museum to-be.

The thesis examines the shift from the colonial to the national as one of continuation, something that is true for postcolonial nationalism in general. The thesis also underlines a shift from nature to culture, from taxonomy to preservation, from exterior world to museum interior, from Malayan to Singaporean, and from other to self. The Raffles Museum became the imaginaries it had created and the only site where its authentic Malayan nature and culture could

11 flourish – whether in the hands of colonial amateur scientists, nationalist politicians, or international museum experts.

Further study would enrich this examination of what constitutes the “national” and how culture is formed in a postcolonial context. Future directions might include Otto Koenigsberger’s urban plan of 1958, which offers an example of colonial architecture that entered the realm of the

“national.” The importance of archaeology would repay attention; the discipline largely determined the island’s cultural and civilizational origins. Finally, studies of travelling exhibitions between India, Malaya, and other Commonwealth nations could add nuance the analysis of “Malaya” as an anti-colonial category.

12 From Colonial to Nationalist Malaya

In the years following World War II and the Japanese Occupation of Malaya, British Malaya was marked by numerous conflicts between colonial rule and local social, anti-colonial movements.2

The British military administration’s attempt to suppress anti-colonial sentiments developed into a conflict that resembled other late-colonial wars.3 The Malayan struggle for was mirrored in violent wars across including the Mau Mau uprising in , the Anglo-

French-Israeli invasion of , the Indochinese War, and the . Similarly, the ultimate separation of Singapore from Malaya – and the creation of the nations of Singapore and

Malaysia – was a partition-solution implemented across British territories including Palestine and India.

The conflict in British Malaya became known as the Malayan Emergency. This guerilla war officially lasted from 1948 to 1960 and was predominantly fought in the peninsula’s jungle between Commonwealth forces on the one hand and the Malayan National Liberation Army and the military section of the Malayan Communist Party on the other hand. The ramifications of the armed war, however, extended beyond the peninsula and impacted anti-colonial struggle on the island of Singapore. For instance, the Emergency Regulations restricted unionism and strikes in urban areas.4 Following the imposition of such measurements, the Malayan Communist Party based in Singapore, initially an anti-Japanese force that joined the British against the Occupation,

2 Albert Lau, A Moment of Anguish: Singapore in and the Politics of Disengagement (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Intl, 1998) 1. 3 Kevin W.K Ng, ‘Reappraising the Aftermath of War: The Problems of the British Military Administration and Singapore’s Place in the Changing Strategic Environment of , 1945-46’, in Studying Singapore’s Past: C.M. Turnbull and the History of Modern Singapore, ed. Nicholas Tarling (Singapore: NUS Press, 2012), 163. 4 Ping Tjin Thum, ‘The Limitations of Monolingual History’, in Studying Singapore’s Past: C.M. Turnbull and the History of Modern Singapore, ed. Nicholas Tarling (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2012), 99.

13 became an illegal organization. Its leaders and members went underground or were mobilized in the peninsula’s jungles and in the Anti-British League in Singapore.5

The Emergency Regulations framed any social movement as communist and anti-colonial despite the fact that the political frustration to a large extent was rooted in material conditions.

Singapore was marked by food shortage, and the island’s death rate was double the pre-war level with hospitals falling short in equipment and medicines. When the Korean War ended in the early 1950s, the rubber boom that otherwise had sustained Singapore also came to an end, resulting in high unemployment.6 Consequently, recession led to raised commodity prices while wages remained stagnant, conditions that only fed an increasing number of labor and student protests.7

Despite local resistance towards colonial rule, the British planned a bureaucratic re- organization of the Malayan territories. Historically, British Malaya comprised the Strait

Settlements, which since 1867 had included the three settlements of and on the

Malay peninsula and the island of Singapore at the tip of it. British Malaya had also included the fragmented nine Federated and Unfederated Malay States on the peninsula.8 Finally, there were the Borneo territories of , North Borneo, and Brunei, each with its own unique administrative status.9 To ease administration of the colony and in anticipation of decolonization, the War Cabinet wished to unify the dispersed territories into larger political entities.

5 C.C. Chin, ‘The United Front Strategy of the Malayan Communist Party in Singapore, 1950s-1960s’, ed. Michael Barr and Carl A. Trocki (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008), 61. 6 Thum, ‘The Limitations of Monolingual History,’ 99. 7 C. M. Turnbull, A History of Modern Singapore, 1819-2005, (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2009), 229. 8 Lau, A Moment of Anguish, 1. 9 Michael Barr and Carl A. Trocki, ‘Introduction’, in Paths Not Taken: Political Pluralism in Post-War Singapore, ed. Michael Barr and Carl A. Trocki (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008), 5.

14 As the struggle for independence persisted, the British aimed to create “stable” territories to enable continuous trade in the region. To facilitate the negotiations of territorial rearrangement, the British appealed to the Malay sultanates by offering a plan that would result in Malay majority. The British devised a “Malayan Union,” which comprised the territories on the peninsula, that is, Penang, Malacca, and the Federated and Unfederated Malay States. With its predominantly Chinese population, Singapore was excluded from this entity. Due to its racial demographics, Singapore would have tipped the balance of Chinese and Malay to a Chinese majority. Further, among the conservative Malay elite, it was feared that Singapore, not Kuala

Lumpur, would become the Union’s political and financial center due to its port infrastructure.10

By April 1946, the military administration was replaced by the civil administration. The Malayan

Union was launched in the peninsula, and the island of Singapore attained status as a separate

Crown Colony.11

While Singapore and the new Malayan Union continued to share logistics such as currency, civil aviation, and postal services, the separation reinforced Malay nationalist impulses in the Union. In exchange for continuous military and trade benefits, the colonial rule fueled

Malay nationalism.12 The British had initially created “Malaya” – a synthetic governmental category that grouped territories and peoples. Now, colonialism spilled into nationalism as

“Malaya” was appropriated by the colonized: the colonial, administrative category of “Malaya” was adopted by a nationalist quest for self-determination. In the peninsula, the idea of Malaya as a country for Malays only flourished.13

10 Lau, A Moment of Anguish, 3. 11 C. M. Turnbull, A History of Modern Singapore, 1819-2005, (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2009), 233. 12 Lau, A Moment of Anguish, 4. 13 Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary and the Legacy of Late Colonialism, (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1996), 16.

15 By 1948, the Union was replaced by the Federation of Malaya to meet the Malay request for increased sovereignty and “favorable” treatment of Malays vis-à-vis other races.14 In 1957, the Federation was granted independence and self-governance. In that year’s elections, the

United Malaya National Organisation (UMNO) won under the leadership of Prime Minister

Tunku Abdul Rahman, who represented anti-colonial and anti-communist policies.15 The constitution of the now self-governing Malaya continued the British privileging of Malays in multiple ways. For example, it granted citizenship to Malays on a more liberal basis than to other races and ethnicities; Islam was the official religion; a Malay ruler was appointed the Yang di-

Pertuan Agong (the supreme head of state); and Malays were granted special privileges in education, public service, and issuance of business permits.16

Historically, Singapore had been framed as an attachment to larger “Malay” entities such as the Straits Settlements, British Malaya, and later the Federation of Malaysia.17 While neither the Malayan Union nor the Federation imagined Singapore as part of Malaya, new political movements in Singapore indeed imagined themselves as part of it. Following the separation in

1946, the question of a “merger” with Malaya became a pressing issue: the “merger” was perceived as crucial to Singapore’s economic position and the only viable route to independence.18 However, as the decolonization process unfolded, the differences between the two territories became salient. While the ethnocentric notion of Malaya bloomed in the Malay peninsula, a political notion of Malaya emerged in Singapore: “Malaya” in the Federation

14 National Library Board Singapore, ‘Federation of Malaya Is Inaugurated - Singapore History’, 2014. Accessed 11 December 2019, http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/history/events/72e9ebe6-7a0f-4512-aa48-3da99d598525#7. 15 Lau, A Moment of Anguish, 5. 16 Lau, A Moment of Anguish, 6. 17 Turnbull, A History of Modern Singapore, 1819-2005, 1. 18 Karl Hack, ‘Framing Singapore’s History’, in Studying Singapore’s Past: C.M. Turnbull and the History of Modern Singapore, ed. Nicholas Tarling (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2012), 24.

16 equaled a racial affiliation while “Malaya” in Singapore equaled an anti-colonial, struggle for self-determination. 19

In contrast to the anti-communist Malay Federation, the Singaporean parties gained votes on left-wing policies. In the 1955-elections, the Singapore Labour Front Party became the strongest single party. It openly denounced colonialism as exploitation and diverged from the ideology in the peninsula in significant ways.20 The Party advocated for several goals including a merged Singapore and Malaya and a complete “Malayanisation” of the public administration within four years (the indigenization of the civil service). The Party also wished to extend

Singapore citizenship to the 220,000 -born inhabitants; abolish the Emergency regulations; and introduce multilingualism in legislature.21 Finally, the Party’s policies aligned with the notion of “Malaya” as an anti-colonial solidarity across racial and ethnic boundaries, a definition that sharply differed from the peninsula’s notion of “Malaya,” which connoted a racial, nationalist discourse.

The 1959-elections were won by the People’s Action Party (PAP), the Party that still governs Singapore today. The Party’s unending rule has resulted in a national narrative that correlates Singapore’s history with that of the Party.22 Indeed, the “nation” has somewhat come to mean the of the PAP rather than a broader system of government. At times, the

“nation” has even equaled the singular political figure of , Prime Minister (1959-

90); senior minister (1990-2004); minister mentor (2004-2011). He played a crucial role in shaping the national history of Singapore and the changing meanings of “Malaya.”

19 Sunil S. Amrith, ‘Internationalism and Political Pluralism in Singapore, 1950-1963’, in Paths Not Taken: Political Pluralism in Post-War Singapore, ed. Michael Barr and Carl A. Trocki (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008), 38. 20 Turnbull, A History of Modern Singapore, 1819-2005, 260. 21 Turnbull, 260. 22 Lysa Hong and Jianli Huang, The Scripting of a National History: Singapore and Its Pasts (: Hong Kong University Press, 2008), 32.

17 In 1963, Singapore became part of the Federation of Malaysia. However, ideological tension led to Singapore’s final separation from Malaysia in 1965, which also resulted in the

PAP’s abandonment of its Malayan solidarity.23 From this moment and onwards, the Party started nurturing the idea of “Singapore” as distinct from that of “Malaya.”24 Like “Malaya,”

Third Worldism lost its momentum and was equated with “backwardness” rather than solidarity.

The final split between the territories also had consequences for the writing of

Singapore’s history. Historically, the two territories were often addressed in the same monograph.25 However, following the 1965-separation, the PAP deemed history as a nation- building instrument invalid. It exposed the Party’s failed merger with Malaya. Supposedly, history also reinforced “communalist” factionalism, that is, racial and ethnic tensions.26 The

Party therefore presented the island as a “modern” nation without history: Singapore was a

“blank slate.”

This “blank slate” approach lasted until the 1980s. The PAP struggled politically and, in an attempt to regain votes, it sought to demonstrate its long-term contribution to Singapore. To this end, the Party crafted a narrative with itself as the protagonist. The history produced by the

PAP was written in retrospect as a teleological, linear story that led towards the creation of the nation of Singapore. Importantly, colonialism presented itself as an alternative continuity to the story of “Malaya.” The Party created a genealogy for Singapore that began in 1819 when Sir

Thomas Stamford Raffles, official of the British , arrived in Singapore.

Raffles, the Party decided, marked the founding moment of “modern” Singapore and offered a

23 Hack, ‘Framing Singapore’s History,’19. 24 Laavanya Kathiravelu, ‘Rethinking Race: Beyond the CMIO Categorisations’, in Living with Myths in Singapore, ed. Ping Tjin Thum, Jack Meng-Tat Chia, and Kah Seng Loh (Singapore: Ethos Books, 2017), 161. 25 Albert Lau, ‘The National Past and the Writing of the History of Singapore’, in Imagining Singapore, ed. Ban Kah Choon, Tong Chee Kiong, and Anne Pakir (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Intl, 2004), 36. 26 Hong and Huang, The Scripting of a National History: Singapore and Its Pasts, 53.

18 narrative that unified the island’s disparate Chinese, Indian, Malay, Indonesian, and Middle

Eastern communities.27

Over the span of a few decades, the PAP went from associating itself with anti-colonial

“Malayan” struggle to framing itself as heir to colonialism. By creating a history that orbited around colonialism, the “Singapore Story” crafted a nation from a heterogenous, dispersed population into a unified community. The emphasis on the “Singaporean” category allowed for local (Chinese) politicians to obscure a demography that was by far majority Chinese (75 percent), against 18 percent Malay, and 6 percent Indian.28 Stamford Raffles and Lee Kuan Yew were portrayed as the founding fathers of the nation of Singapore. The new narrative gave birth to popular phrases such as “Great Men from Stamford Raffles to Lee Kuan Yew” and “From

Mangrove to Metropolis.”29 By promoting the PAP as the rightful successor to the island, the

PAP replaced an anti-colonial Malayan framework with a colonial framework: colonial origins replaced Malayan solidarity. Independence was phrased as a continuation of colonialism’s “trade and stability,” not a break with it.

The Party’s story of an autonomous Singapore was supported by scholars such as

Constance Mary Turnbull’s A History of Singapore 1819-1975 (1977), a British civil servant- turned-historian.30 In narratives such as that of Turnbull, the regional frameworks of “British

Malaya,” “the South Seas,” and “Malaya” are abandoned in favor of the nationalist “Singapore” framework.31 Turnbull’s opening paragraph cements the natural continuation of colonialism into nationalism: she states, “modern Singapore dates from 30 January 1819” when Raffles

27 Turnbull, A History of Modern Singapore, 1819-2005, 1. 28 Hong and Huang, The Scripting of a National History: Singapore and Its Pasts, 5. 29 Kwa Chong Guan, ‘Transforming the National Museum of Singapore’, in Rethinking Cultural Resource Management in Southeast Asia. Preservation, Development, and Neglect, ed. John N. Miksic, Sue O’Connor, and Geok Yian Goh (London: Anthem Press, 2011), 211. 30 Lau, ‘The National Past and the Writing of the History of Singapore,’ 36. 31 Hack, ‘Framing Singapore’s History,’ 25.

19 introduced the policy of free trade that eventually transformed Singapore into today’s

“cosmopolitan” city.32

To consolidate the notion of “Singapore,” the PAP sponsored the writing of publications such as the ubiquitous The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (1998) written by former

Prime Minister Lee. By the 1990s, the “past” had become an important legitimizing instrument in sustaining the hegemony of the PAP. Official narratives of Singapore’s decolonization generally follow a progressive chronology. Starting with the Japanese Occupation, the story suggests that diverse communities unified in face of common suffering during World War II.33

Chaos was then replaced by order with the assumption of the PAP government in 1959.34 In his

Singapore Story, Lee warns that from the moment of Singapore’s expulsion from the Malaysian

Federation in 1965, Singapore became “a Chinese island in a Malay sea.”35 The vulnerable and survivalist city-state defied all odds even with the loss of its hinterland Malaya.36 Despite violent communists and “communalism,” Singapore developed from “third world to first,” the title of

Lee’s second memoir.37

During late colonialism, other notions of solidarity and anti-colonial resistance existed alongside the framework of “Malaya.” Indeed, as revisionist historians have underlined, numerous anti- colonial visions of an independent Singapore existed in the 1950s before the PAP settled on and

32 Hack, ‘Framing Singapore’s History,’ 19. 33 Turnbull, A History of Modern Singapore, 1819-2005, 10. 34 Michael Barr and Carl A. Trocki, ‘Introduction’, in Paths Not Taken: Political Pluralism in Post-War Singapore, ed. Michael Barr and Carl A. Trocki (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008), 3. 35 Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore: Prentice Hall, 1998), 23. 36 Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story - 1965-2000 (Singapore: Times Media, 2000), 19. 37 Kah Seng Loh, ‘Within the Singapore Story: The Use and Narrative of History in Singapore’, Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 12, no. 2 (1998): 1.

20 disseminated a singular national narrative.38 In Singapore, some communities strengthening their specific clan affiliations. Other communities nurtured a notion of history that speculated in the resurrection of pre-colonial kingdoms. Such “thickening” of regional specificity and belonging was often an expression of resistance towards colonial definitions of Malaya’s land and peoples.

At times, such resistance matched the PAP’s vision of “Malaya,” at others, it did not.

The Malay left’s vision of a political union with complemented the PAP’s anti- colonial notion of “Malaya.” This fraction of Singapore’s leftwing community imagined a renaissance of the pre-Islamic kingdoms of Sri Vijaya and . This political project of creating a Great Malay Nation was part of a Third Worldism and an expression of nostalgia for a time prior to Western colonialism. 39 The long durée history – as opposed to the “Singapore

Story” – highlights the fourteenth-century legacy of “Singapura”: modern Singapore was a continuation of a flourishing maritime region and a natural heir to ancient Malay empires rather than a product of British colonialism.40 The notion of pan-Malaya partially overlapped with the

PAP’s quest for “merger” with peninsula Malaya and was one of many conceptual and political solidarities prevalent in Singapore during the 1950s.41

The PAP’s notion of “Malaya” also overlapped with the Chinese Chamber of

Commerce’s emphasis on “localization.” The Chamber represented numerous southern Chinese ethnicities working in Singapore, and its push towards “localization” implied an abandonment of

38 Such publications include The Scripting of a National History (2008) by Hong Lysa and Huang Jianli; Paths Not Taken: Political Pluralism in Post-War Singapore (2008) edited by Michael D. Barr and Carl A. Trocki; and Living with Myths in Singapore (2017) edited by Thum Ping Tjin, Jack Meng-Tat Chia, and Loh Kah Seng. 39 Kah Seng Loh, Ping Tjin Thum, and Jack Meng-Tat Chia, ‘Introduction: Singapore as a Mythic Nation’, in Living with Myths in Singapore, ed. Kah Seng Loh, Ping Tjin Thum, and Jack Meng-Tat Chia (Singapore: Ethos Books, 2017), 7. 40 Turnbull, A History of Modern Singapore, 1819-2005, 4. 41 Lily Zubaidah Rahim, ‘Winning and Losing Malay Support: PAP-Malay Community Relations, 1950s and 1960s’, in Paths Not Taken: Political Pluralism in Post-War Singapore, ed. Michael Barr and Carl A. Trocki (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008), 96.

21 such Chinese “origins.” Disparate ethnicities were encouraged to embrace the diaspora condition as one of permanence: members of the Chamber’s communities were encouraged to shift their understanding of Singapore as not a temporary sojourn but instead a permanent home. This political process most explicitly took place in the China-born and Chinese-educated communities. The Chamber’s advocacy of “giving up” once ethnic origins and pledging loyalty to Singapore corresponded to the PAP’s definition of “Malaya” as a category that surpassed race and ethnicity.42 The Party aimed at creating a “common Malayan culture”: immigrant communities were expected to leave behind the history and culture of the “countries from which they originally came.”43 The concept of “Malaya” encouraged the population to forget “their alien loyalties” and seek a “common culture in the Malayan homeland.”44

However, not all communities supported the PAP’s visions of a Malayan solidarity. For instance, the establishment of the Nanyang University appeared to clash with the Party’s notion of a culturally unified nation. The University, a self-funded institution established through popular fundraising campaigns, opened in 1958, and aimed at preserving and promoting Chinese culture. This institution was a result of long-term frustration about an unequal educational system that privileged English language over vernaculars.45 On the one hand, the PAP courted the

Chinese community with anti-colonial rhetoric to gain access to the mass voters of the Chinese student unions and workers’ unions. On the other hand, the notion of Nanyang, which refers to the Southern Chinese seas, appeared counterproductive to the PAP’s definition of “Malaya.”

42 Sikko Visscher, ‘Chinese Merchants in Politics: The Democratic Party in the 1955 Legislative Assembly Election’, in Paths Not Taken: Political Pluralism in Post-War Singapore, ed. Michael Barr and Carl A. Trocki (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008), 79. 43 , State of Singapore Annual Report 1959 (Singapore: Government Printing Office, 1961), 189. 44 Government of Singapore, 189. 45 Hong and Huang, The Scripting of a National History: Singapore and Its Pasts, 198.

22 Certain Chinese communities’ commitment to “Nanyang” threatened the PAP’s commitment to

“merger” and a united Malaya.46

Even within the Party, the concept of “Malaya” was increasingly questioned. Arguably, following the PAP’s victory in 1959, the issue of “merger” divided the Party.47 Among the

Party’s left-wing supporters, “merger” with the Federation was perceived as a neo-colonial policy that only would strengthen the British and American strategies: to the left-wing section, the Federation was not an example of “self-determination,” but a product of the colonial

War Cabinet that now was governed by pro-British anti-communists. The tension only increased as the Party’s left-wing demanded a renouncement of colonial legal legacy.48 This disagreement was caused by the PAP’s adoption of British Emergency measures: the PAP had converted the

British Preservation of Public Security Ordinance into the Internal Security Act to enable the arrest of its political opponents.49 The internal conflict ultimately resulted in the Party’s expulsion of prominent Assemblymen and party members such as Lim Chin Siong in 1961.50

The entire left-wing section was eventually legally restricted by fellow Party members despite its hold on the electorate mass base.51 This right-wing authoritarian turn accelerated the abandonment of the anti-colonial “Malaya.”

46 Souchou Yao, ‘All Quiet on Jurong Road: Nanyang University and Radical Vision in Singapore’, in Paths Not Taken: Political Pluralism in Post-War Singapore, ed. Michael Barr and Carl A. Trocki (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008), 171. 47 Yao, ‘All Quiet on Jurong Road: Nanyang University and Radical Vision in Singapore,’ 182. 48 Ping Tjin Thum, ‘Justifying Colonial Rule in Post-Colonial Singapore: The Myths of Vulnerability, Development, Meritocracy’, in Living with Myths in Singapore, ed. Kah Seng Loh, Ping Tjin Thum, and Jack Meng-Tat Chia (Singapore: Ethos Books, 2017), 17. 49 Carl A. Trocki, ‘David Marshall and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Singapore’, in Paths Not Taken: Political Pluralism in Post-War Singapore, ed. Carl A. Trocki and Michael Barr (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008), 120. 50 Michael Fernandez and Kah Seng Loh, ‘The Left-Wing Trade Unions in Singapore, 1945-70’, in Paths Not Taken: Political Pluralism in Post-War Singapore, ed. Michael Barr and Carl A. Trocki (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008), 222. 51 Hong and Huang, The Scripting of a National History: Singapore and Its Pasts, 6.

23 The notion of “Malaya” has its origins in colonial categorization of Malaya’s territories and peoples. During late colonialism, “Malaya” came to signify political solidarity and anti- colonial solidarity. “Malaya” was used to unify a people against colonial rule and later to consolidate the PAP’s power.52 From the founding of the PAP in 1954 to the expulsion of

Singapore from Malaysia in 1965, the Party drastically changed its policies. It went from supporting a united “Malayan” front with the communists against colonialism to promoting a non-Malayan and anti-communist Singapore.53 From being part of the larger Malay world,

Singapore became a separate unit. The PAP abandoned the Malay solidarity and instead invoked

Singapore as a lone Chinese state in the Malay world threatened by subversive powers internally and externally.54 Ultimately, the shifting meanings of “Malaya” underline the arbitrary boundaries of the national, the anti-national, the colonial, and the anti-colonial in the context of decolonization.

The notion of an anti-colonial Malaya was disseminated through infrastructures established by colonialism. For example, when Singapore gained self-governance in 1959, the Annual Report of the Colony of Singapore was replaced by the State of Singapore Annual Report. The State

Report adopted the format and contents of the colonial report but read as a manifesto of a new nation. For instance, the State Report’s chapter “History of Singapore” – borrowing its title from the colonial report – initiated a rupture from the British narrative on the origins of Singapore.

While the colonial reports emphasized Raffles as the founder of Singapore, the new story rooted the island in a long lineage of trade, insisting that for millennia the port city had been “one of the

52 Amrith, ‘Internationalism and Political Pluralism in Singapore, 1950-1963,’ 37. 53 Yao, ‘All Quiet on Jurong Road: Nanyang University and Radical Vision in Singapore,’ 182. 54 Amrith, ‘Internationalism and Political Pluralism in Singapore, 1950-1963,’ 48.

24 world’s most fertile areas.”55 In an overt break from the colonial narrative, the State Report underlines that Raffles “was not creating but continuing history when he turned to Singapore as the site of the Settlement-emporium.”56 Thus, prior to the 1960s “blank slate”-story and the

1980s “Singapore Story,” the PAP rooted Singapore’s past in the Malay world.

Telling the story of the road to independence, the State Report relates the strong anti- colonial struggle emerging after the Japanese Occupation. The PAP devised the Occupation as a turning point not only in terms of decolonization but also in terms of the geographical imagination of Singapore’s population: the instincts of home were challenged when “people suffered for Singapore.”57 The collective struggle supposedly turned an immigrant’s outwards look into an inward-looking trend towards permanence in Singapore. This emphasis on immigrants-turned-citizens bolstered the reports’ aim to create national unity. To further reinforce national coherence and the notion of a Malayan Singapore, the PAP launchd the

Ministry of Culture.

Following the PAP’s victory in 1959, Sinnathamby Rajaratnam was appointed the

Minister of Culture of the new ministry that aspired to instill in “people of all races the will to be a nation.”58 The Ministry of Culture aimed to bring people together: “cultural citizenship and a sense of common inheritance” was “an essential element of nationalism.”59 The Ministry was responsible for formulating the politics needed to create a common Malayan culture and to keep the people informed of the broad aims and objectives of the government, which included “the elimination of communal divisions and attitudes,” “independence through merger,” and “a

55 Government of Singapore, State of Singapore Annual Report 1959, 23. 56 Government of Singapore, 25. 57Government of Singapore, 30. 58 Government of Singapore, 12. 59 Government of Singapore, 189.

25 democratic socialist way of life.”60 These objectives were carried out by the Ministry’s divisions of “news,” “publicity,” “broadcasting,” “library,” “printing,” and “museum,” the latter referring to the Raffles Museum.61

As part of the new Ministry, the Raffles Museum became involved with bolstering

“Malayan” solidarity. The discussion of an anti-colonial “Malayan” culture entered the museum through exhibitions such as the Indian Art Exhibition (1959). The Straits Times reported that

Prime Minister Lee opened the show of ancient and modern Indian art organized by the

Singapore Arts Council [Fig. 2].62 The exhibition coincided with the PAP’s elections victory in

May and its push towards Malayan “merger”: Lee’s opening speech connected the Party’s ideology to the museum and inaugurated the conversion of the colonial institution into a national one. The exhibition presents a first local step to “museumize” Malaya’s national “past” by displaying its civilizational and cultural affinities.

During the month-long exhibition, “purely Indian art” was displayed to establish

Malaya’s Eastern genealogy.63 In line with Lee’s opening speech, the Straits Times reported that the art exhibition served as “powerful stimulus to local artists in the creation of a new Malayan art.”64 Lee re-oriented Malaya’s geographic origins stating, “in a way India is to Malayan culture what ancient Greece and Rome were to Western culture.”65 This turn to India evoked a Third

World solidarity: the exhibition was most likely one of several travelling exhibitions of Indian art that toured Malaya to strengthen solidarity and political ties among Commonwealth territories.

60 Government of Singapore, 189. 61 Government of Singapore, 190. 62 ‘Lee to Open Show of Ancient and Modern Indian Art’, The Straits Times, 2 September 1959, 4. 63 ‘Lee to Open Show of Ancient and Modern Indian Art’, 4. 64 ‘Lee to Open Show of Ancient and Modern Indian Art’, 4. 65 Lee Kuan Yew, ‘Speech by the Prime Minister at the Opening of the Exhibition of Indian Art’ (Singapore, 6 September 1959).

26 While Lee emphasized ancient “India” as the site for Malaya’s origins, the artworks on display were in fact predominantly modern, specially selected from the National Gallery of

Modern Art in New Delhi.66 The exhibition included fifty-five “album miniatures” by Moghul and Rajput court artists dating from 1500-1800. The paintings depicted court activities such as hunting, musical entertainment, and archery, and also included a “famous” portrait of the

Emperor Jahangir holding a picture of the Virgin Mary.67 In addition, the Museum of the

University of Malaya contributed four pieces of ancient Hindu and Buddhist sculpture donated to the University by India six months prior. The exhibition also included thirty-six modern paintings, “some traditional in style and some reflecting the international influence of modern western art (sic).”68 Among the modern artworks were four sculptures and works by artists Roy

Chowdhury, Arup Das, D. Badri, Jamini Roy, and finally, “a beautiful portrait of a Boy in White from the Brilliant woman painter Amrita Sher-Gin.”69 While the artworks, ancient and modern, displayed influences from the West such as Christian motifs and “international,” modernist painting style, Lee insisted that the objects represented a “purely” Indian spirit.

The photographs of the exhibition focus on political protagonists including Prime

Minister Lee, Indian High Commissioner “Mr” Banerji, and museum director Carl Alexander

Gibson-Hill. However, in the background of the press’ portraits, the display can be discerned.

The temporary exhibition displayed Indian art from across time and space on white boards within a neoclassical domed entrance hall. Moghul miniatures of dancing figures and landscapes were displayed next to a bust of Raffles and ornaments of English heraldry or coats of arms [Fig. 3].

The artworks were detached from their historical and cultural contexts, which allowed them to

66 ‘Lee to Open Show of Ancient and Modern Indian Art’, 4. 67 ‘Lee to Open Show of Ancient and Modern Indian Art’, 4. 68 ‘Lee to Open Show of Ancient and Modern Indian Art’, 4. 69 ‘Lee to Open Show of Ancient and Modern Indian Art’, 4.

27 exist as “pure aesthetics,” as containers ready to receive projected imaginaries of culture, be they colonial or national fictions. The objects and architecture were installed in a seemingly unrelated relationship but coexisted within the same space.

Lee’s speech framed the exhibition as a milestone in Malaya’s search for a civilizational starting point: he proposed that such exhibitions “should inspire some historian to rewrite our history not in terms of Western empire builders but from the standpoint of a Malayan nationalist.”70 In line with the notion of anti-colonial Malayan solidarity, Lee declared, “this exhibition of Indian Art is a reminder to us that the history of Malaya did not begin with Sir

Stamford Raffles or the Dutch and Portuguese desperadoes who preceded him.”71 However, rather than stressing a culture of pure indigeneity, Lee underlined the inherent hybridity of

Malayan culture: the Indian Art Exhibition portrayed Malayan culture as something that emerged from Indian, Chinese, and even European .72 The exhibition proposed a Malayan culture of mixture: Malaya was defined by “extensive borrowing, adaptation and assimilation from other cultures.”73 While the Indian Art Exhibition framed India in terms of purity, Malaya was portrayed in terms of hybridity

As much as the turn to India was staged as a break from European dominance, “India” like “Malaya” was a colonial concept that spilled into the period of independence. Indeed, the idea of “India” as the site of the ancient East had its roots in European art history and archaeology. The legacy of colonial archaeology supported the notion of an “Indianized”

Malaya: Lee reminded the new nation that “on the shores of have been found evidence of

Indian settlements from the 4th to the 12th centuries, among them the Buddha of the 5th century

70 Lee, ‘Speech by the Prime Minister at the Opening of the Exhibition of Indian Art’. 71 Lee. 72 Lee. 73 Lee.

28 now housed in this museum.” Contemporaneous archaeological expeditions also excavated “old”

Hindu Temples at Sungai Batu Pahat in Kedah, which proved this ancient civilizational connection.74

Since the mid-nineteenth century, British colonial officers had carried out in the Malay peninsula. The first archaeological “discoveries” of the – a large area that also included Sungai Batu mentioned in Lee’s speech – were headed by Colonel James Low in the early 1860s.75 Museums and their staff members, including those of the Raffles Museum, were involved in such archaeological explorations, and museum journals and bulletins were important venues for publishing pseudo-academic articles on archaeology.

The early expeditions were sporadic: the excavation sites were determined by the location of early British settlements rather than grounded in historic knowledge about the area. Further, the museum staff members were untrained “experts” who conducted unprofessional diggings and stumbled over chance findings: to a large extent, Malaya’s prehistory had been constructed by amateurs. More systematic excavations were carried out in the early twentieth century. In particular, Cambridge graduate and British civil servant Horace Geoffrey Quaritch

Wales contributed to the explorations of the Bujang Valley in the 1930s. In fact, Wales was the person who had found and gifted the mentioned Buddha figure to the Raffles Museum, an 8-inch bronze sculpture, which became known as one of the earliest examples of “Indian” influence on local craftmanship in Malaya.76 Wales’ more intentional excavations informed his “India Raya” theory. Wales’ visit to the Bujang Valley was part of his research conducted on behalf of the

74 Lee. 75 Zolkurnian Hassan, Stephen Chia, and Hamid Mohd Isa, ‘Survey and Excavation of an Ancient Monument in Sungai Batu, Bujang Valley, Kedah, Malaysia’, in Bujang Valley and Early Civilizations in Southeast Asia, ed. Stephen Chia and Barbara Watson Andaya (Malaysia: Department of National Heritage, 2011), 30. 76 National Heritage Board, ‘Kedah Buddha’, www.roots.sg, July 2018, http://roots.sg/learn/collections/listing/1088403.

29 “Greater India Research Committee,” a committee based in Calcutta appointed to explore Indian colonialism in Malaya. Wales’ excavations carried out post-World War II revealed nearly thirty

Hindu and Buddhist shrines in Malaya, which all bore witness to the cultural expansion of India.

Like Lee, Wales concluded that Malaya for centuries had been influenced by India.

Lee’s notion of an anti-colonial, “Indianized” Malaya was thus entangled with Indian nationalist and British orientalist tendencies. The desire to underline India’s influence in Malaya overlapped with the nationalist impulses in Malaya. The accidental excavations played a significant role in the formation and conceptualization of Malaya: while originally a colonial endeavor, archaeology now contributed to the construction of a nationalist “Malayan” culture.

The colonial museum’s archaeological pursuits supported Lee’s anti-colonial, nationalist agenda.

A few months prior to the exhibition at the Raffles Museum, the Indian Government had donated a collection of Indian art to the Museum of the University of Malaya, a collection which had contributed artifacts to the Indian Art Exhibition. The “art and handicrafts” formed part of the museum’s contribution to an exhibition at Singapore’s Festival of Arts in April 1959. The commemorative catalogue of the exhibition was co-authored by Banerji, the Indian High

Commissioner who had facilitated the organization of the exhibition at the Raffles Museum.

Similar to Lee’s opening speech, Banerji stated that Malaya and India had been “cultural neighbours” for centuries and that their ties only tightened with a shared and Commonwealth trade.77

Akin to the display in the Raffles Museum, the objects donated to the University demonstrated the historic and present cultural links between “Pan-Malaya” and an Indian

77 University of Malaya Art Museum Singapore, The Art of India. Commemorative Catalogue of an Exhibition of Indian Art and Handicrafts Presented to the University of Malaya by the Government of India on March 31st, 1959 (Singapore: Weng Printers Co., 1959).

30 territory that spanned Kashmir, , and Tamil Nadu, and that to some degree also included

“Hinterindien,” the area in between India and the Far East. The curator of the exhibition, Michael

Sullivan, a Cambridge graduate and architect-turned-art historian, noted that the objects visualized a “purely” Indian style. Sullivan acknowledged that the “art and handicrafts” displayed influences from “Greco-Buddhism” and Islam, but ultimately, the “Art of India” remained pure and not “cosmopolitan.”78 Sullivan echoed a larger scholarly impulse that was concerned with eliminating “foreign” traces, in particular Hellenic ones, from the “Indian” narrative to underline the outward flow and diffusion of Indian art. 79 Wales, Sullivan, and

Banerji agreed that unique to Indian art was the “power of giving solid, tangible form to an abstract metaphysical concept”: Indian craftsmanship contained a profound spirit of Indian .80 According such orientalist and nationalist frameworks, the “spirit” manifested itself in the geometric and ornamental qualities of Indian art.

The notions of authenticity and purity were intimately tied to colonial constructions of distinct colonized territories and peoples, and such colonial, orientalist discourses merged with nationalist pursuits of a “true” Malayan culture.81 Indeed, the exhibition at the Raffles Museum reinforced both colonial and nationalist imaginaries of India. Lee’s acknowledgement of Indian influences in Malaya as well as Wales’ amateur excavations supported the nationalist idea of

India as a site of civilizational and cultural beginnings. The Indian Art Exhibition also confirmed

India as a point of origins, simultaneously insisting on India’s culture as one of purity and

Malaya’s culture as one of mixture.82

78 University of Malaya Art Museum Singapore. 79 Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial and Post- (Columbia University Press, 2004), 204. 80 University of Malaya Art Museum Singapore. 81 Guha-Thakurta, 185. 82 Guha-Thakurta, 186.

31 The creation of distinct, specific cultures across the emerged from the question of how to read and govern people. Artificial constructs such as “Malaya” codified peoples and areas, turning them into legible categories. Such colonial categories operated as a way of differentiating people, which later served nationalist impulses and “local” pursuits of self- determination. The invention of culture by both colonizer and colonized was intimately tied to imperial governance and later the formation of nations. In the context of Singapore, the concept of Malaya as anti-colonial solidarity was crucial to the early independence movement as reflected in the aims of the Ministry of Culture. Despite its colonial roots, “Malayan culture” became a nationalist, political instrument. As revealed in the Indian Art Exhibition, the museum space reinforced synthetic, colonial categories of “Indian,” “Malayan,” and “British,” which were endlessly reflected by one another, allowing for colonial definitions of culture to spill into national ones.

32 From Nature to Culture

In June 1819, in what is commonly known as the founding letter of Singapore, official of the

British East India Company, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826), urged colonial officials to draw and collect samples of Malaya’s nature. This practice was part of the colonial search for industrial materials. Prior to arriving in Singapore, Raffles had served as Lieutenant Governor of

Java after the British invasion and seizing of the Dutch East Indian island in 1811. When he

“planted the British Flag” in Singapore, it was with the ambition to “resurrect” the “ancient” port city for British trade purposes and, further, to dissolve the Dutch in the region.83 In the letter, Raffles describes his preoccupation with accumulating botanical species for his natural history collection: the search for revenue potential prompted the collection of natural history specimens. Such behaviors lay the foundation for British colonial museums and established an infrastructure that eventually contributed to the creation of Malaya’s distinct “nature.”84

The origins of the Raffles Museum’s entanglement with colonial trade was not unique. In fact, the museum was similar to other of its kind across the British Empire, which by 1910 counted two thousand museums.85 In the Malay world, the British established three additional natural history museums to the Raffles Museum. Today, the Museum on the west coast of the Malay peninsula remains a natural history museum; so does the Sarawak Museum in Borneo, which in addition is renowned for its significant ethnographic collection. Finally, the

Museum in was converted into Malaysia’s national museum in the early 1960s.

83 W. W. Willans and T. S. Raffles, ‘The Founding of Singapore’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 42, no. 1 (1969): 71. 84 Willans and Raffles, 76. 85 Susan Sheets-Pyenson, ‘Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Museums during the Late Nineteenth Century’, History of Science 25, no. 3 (1 September 1987): 279.

33 Natural history collections like the Raffles Museum contributed to the creation of Malaya as a distinct climate or biome. The concern with specifying a territory’s nature was part of the colonial administration’s practice of dividing the world into regions. Such inventions of

“environments” facilitated the transplantation of cash crops from one climate to another.

However, despite their roots in industrial exploitation, a homogenized understanding of colonial museums as institutions capable of enforcing ideology can be misleading if applied as a totalizing model. The Raffles Museum was neither an embodiment of a prefabricated ideal, nor did it exclusively assist in the reinforcement of binary and monolithic positions of the oppressor and oppressed. The colonial museum was embedded in the violent colonial regime, but it was no grand establishment that singularly controlled colonial and later nationalist representation.

Rather, it was a site of paradoxes and contradictions.86

For various reasons, there has been scant literature written on the Raffles Museum.87

Even more scarce is literature that examines the museum during the late colonial moment and early years of independence. For the most part, articles, popular guides, or celebratory popular history on the Raffles Museum barely mention the years between the late 1930s and 1960.88 In general, Singapore has often been bypassed in postcolonial studies partly due to the PAP’s

“Singapore Story,” which frames the nation of Singapore as a natural continuation of the colonial

86 For literature on museums as paradoxical establishments, see Gyan Prakash’s Another Reason (1999). 87 A few theses have shed light on the Raffles Museum including Teo Moey Marianne Master’s “Singapore National Museum: History and Future” (1987) and Rajamogan’s BA thesis “The National Museum in Historical Perspective 1874-1981” (1987). The Raffles Museum’s institutional history has been documented in popular publications such as Gretchen Liu’s One Hundred Years of the National Museum, Singapore, 1887-1987. Later examples include National Museum of Singapore Guide (2007), The Past in the Present: Histories in the Making (2009), and Dome in the City (2015). 88 Among the few scholarly publications that bridges these years is Kevin L. Tan’s Of Whales and Dinosaurs: the Story of Singapore’s Natural History Museum (2015), which presents a history of the natural history collection. Examples of museum studies in the Malay world from this period include Abu Talib Ahmad’s Museums, History and Culture in Malaysia (2014) and Katharine McGregor’s article “Museums and the Transformation from Colonial to Post-colonial Institutions in Indonesia” (2004).

34 civil government.89 Further, historically, British Malaya, including Singapore, remained a

“comparatively little-known” territory of the Empire.90 For example, Lennox A. Mills, one of the earliest professional historians of Malaya, stated in his monumental study British Rule in Eastern

Asia that British Malaya “was rarely news”; in fact, “the British public took its existence for granted.”91 As a result, the processes of converting colonial museums into national institutions remain little known and their historic affiliation with nationalism is often assumed.

The study of colonial museums in the Malay world is challenged by the dispersion of their collections and the fragmentation of their archives due to war and administrative neglect. In general, the postcolonial period of the British Empire entailed the relocation of objects and large- scale rearrangements and destructions of colonial records.92 In some cases, institutional work and management were abandoned in favor of ethnographic fieldwork. Further, the museums were subject to looting during World War II. Museum staff members were interned during the

Japanese Occupation. Some collections, like the , were left unattended in the absence of a curator during the transition from Crown Colony to nation state.93

Despite the lack of scholarship on the Raffles Museum, it was deeply entangled with colonial infrastructures and practices. The museum space functioned primarily as a site of knowledge production and object collection that served the scientific and industrial demands of the colony. It was through institutions like the Raffles Museum that British Malaya and

Singapore were transformed from a terra incognita to a well-organized colonial administration

89 Chua Beng-Huat, “Southeast Asia in Postcolonial Studies: An Introduction,” Postcolonial Studies 11, no. 3 (2008): 231. 90 Arnold Wright, Twentieth Century Impressions of British Malaya: Its History, People, Commerce, Industries, and Resources (London: Lloyd’s Greater Britain Publishing Company, LTD, 1908), 9. 91 Lennox A. Mills, British Rule in Eastern Asia. A Study of Contemporary Government and Economic Development in British Malaya and Hong Kong (London: Humphrey Milford, 1942), 1. 92 Sato Sho-Hei, “‘Operation Legacy:’ Britain’s Destruction and Concealment of Colonial Records Worldwide,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 45, no. 4 (2017): 698. 93 W. Linehan, Report on the Perak Museum 1949.

35 and tourist destination. For instance, the survey of British Malaya, Twentieth Century

Impressions of British Malaya: Its History, People, Commerce, Industries, and Resources

(1908), was composed of essays largely written by museum staff members across British

Malaya.94 By the early twentieth century, the Raffles Museum had become an established hub for officials, tourists, and scholars, a meeting point that connected Singapore and the British Empire through its exhibits and scholarly expertise.

The genesis of the Raffles Museum is popularly traced back to Raffles’ aspiration to establish an

English educational institution for locals in 1823.95 By 1849, the private institution not only included a library, but had been expanded into a museum collection.96 This collection was not exclusively one of natural history. Beyond minerals, the museum set out to illustrate Singapore and the eastern archipelago through objects such as coins, manuscripts, inscriptions on stones, art, manufacture, figures of deities, weapons, music instruments, and fossils.97 Despite this ambition, there is little evidence of its early contents and whether it was successful in fulfilling its initial purpose.

The Raffles Museum’s roots in colonial trade solidified over the years, for instance, through its participation in international displays of colonial exports. In 1873, a dispatch from the

Secretary of State for the proposed that the museum contribute to a permanent exhibition of commercial products as part of building the collections of South Kensington.98 The museum also sent specimens to the 1875 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition in Australia and the

94 Wright, Twentieth Century Impressions of British Malaya, 9. 95 Kevin Tan, Of Whales and Dinosaurs: The Story of Singapore’s Natural History Museum (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2015), 1. 96 Richard Hanitsch, ‘Raffles Library and Museum, Singapore’, in One Hundred Years of Singapore, ed. Walter Makepeace, Gilbert Brooke, and Roland Braddell (London: John Murray, 1921), 519. 97 Hanitsch, 534. 98 Tan, Of Whales and Dinosaurs, 11.

36 1876 Philadelphian Exhibition, a centennial exhibition that celebrated the anniversary of the

American Declaration of Independence.99 The colonial Government turned the educational collection into a means of advancing the commercial interests of the Settlement.100 In the years of international expositions, the collection’s focus narrowed down to exhibits of trade.

Governor of the Straits Settlements Sir Andrew Clarke suggested combining the museum with the library, which at that point was at a state of bankruptcy.101 In 1874, the museum became property of the Government and was renamed the Raffles Library and Museum to commemorate the Colony’s founder.102 That same year, the Government also took over the Agri-Horticultural

Gardens, later the Botanical Gardens.103 The museum, library, and gardens were headed by a committee, which was appointed by the Governor and drew its members from the expat merchant community.104

James Collins served as the first economic botanist, librarian, curator, and secretary to the museum committee. He launched the Journal of Eastern Asia, in which he published articles that cemented the link between collecting, commerce, and colonialism in the region. Collins also advanced his viewpoints in lectures such as “Museums: Their Commercial and Scientific Uses,” given at Government House in Singapore in 1874.105 He believed the colonial museum to be a pivotal establishment that brought together “all the scattered useful products” and “powerful aids to Commerce.”106 In the museum, the timber merchant, the pharmacist, the cabinet maker, the perfumer, the dyer, the fiber merchant, the paper manufacturer, and the scientist collaborated,

99 Tan, 14. 100 Hanitsch, ‘Raffles Library and Museum, Singapore’, 536. 101 Tan, Of Whales and Dinosaurs, 12. 102 Hanitsch, ‘Raffles Library and Museum, Singapore’, 519. 103 Tan, Of Whales and Dinosaurs, 31. 104 Marianne Teo Moey, ‘Singapore National Museum. History and Future’ (MA Museum Studies, London, University of London, Institute of Archaeology, Department of Conservation, 1987), 15. 105 James Collins, ‘Museums: Their Commercial and Scientific Uses’, Journal of Eastern Asia 1, no. 1 (1874): 9. 106 Collins, 9.

37 “promoting commercial intercourse,” and ultimately, the “onward march of civilisation.”107

According to Collins, the museum was “highly valuable” to the Colony: its participation in colonial exhibitions would “without doubt” lead to increased trade.108

Like the museum, the gardens were instrumental to development of the economic potential of Singapore. Collins made plans for a new “economic” garden and began collecting samples of local grains, starches, “esculent” vegetables, fruits, gums, resins, rubber, and woods.

He experimented with seedlings and cultivation of potential natural exports, thus strengthening the correlation between colonial exports and the museum’s enterprise.109 For example, rubber was exhibited to the public in 1891 at the Botanical Gardens as a new source of revenue.110 By the early twentieth century, rubber was Singapore’s biggest export alongside other economic botanical products including palm oil, coconut oil, and black pepper. The museum’s efforts had long-lasting impact on the Colony’s economy and the importance of economic botany continued into the late colonial period. For instance, a chart from the 1947 Annual Report of the Colony of

Singapore shows an increase in rubber export from $115.6 million in 1938 to $415.4 million in

1947 [Fig. 4].111

Despite Collins’ grand expectations, most of the time, the museum’s reality did not allow for his ambitions to come true. Collins, the only museum staff member alongside a single clerk, struggled to fulfil his numerous administrative tasks: on top of heading the gardens, library, and museum, he also conducted expeditions to collect exhibits for the museum.112 The staff and

107 Collins, 11. 108 Collins, 10. 109 Timothy Barnard, Nature Contained: Environmental Histories of Singapore (NUS Press, 2014), 192. 110 Government of Singapore, Colony of Singapore Annual Report 1953 (Singapore: Government Printing Office, 1953), 235. 111 Government of Singapore, Singapore Annual Report 1947 (Singapore: Government Printing Office of Singapore, 1947), 54. 112 Collins, ‘Museums: Their Commercial and Scientific Uses’, 14.

38 financial shortage resulted in limited acquisitions and a collection that expanded randomly.

Rather than being steered by intentional collection patterns, the museum relied on private donations and sporadic merchants’ contributions. New objects often remained in storage due to lack of space.113 Further, from its founding, the museum was an institution of amateur- professionalism: its staff “experts” were rarely trained within the fields they were expected to work within. The objects that entered the collections reflected the staff’s eccentric personalities: their hobbies dictated the contents of the collections more so than the museum’s commercial enterprises.

Much to Collins’s frustration, the collection did not have a space of its own. From the

Government takeover in 1874, the museum and library were housed in the Town Hall. Due to limited space, the two institutions were relocated to the Raffles Institution in 1876. Here, the collection again quickly grew out of space. A long period of legislative appeals prolonged the planning of a museum. Finally, in 1887, a museum was constructed and completed by the foot of

Government Hill, a symbolic site where the British flag first was hoisted. Military engineer and colonial administrator Henry McCallum designed the neoclassical building [Fig. 5]. A symmetrical two-story structure, the museum resembled other of its kind in British Malaya. The ground floor was occupied by the library in the right wing while the left wing housed the librarian’s private room and a storage room. The first floor was reserved for the ethnographic, geological, mineralogical, zoological, and botanical collections and also included the living quarters of the curator and librarian.

While the Government had invested in a new building, the museum continued to suffer from both shortage of professional expertise and funds. Only with the inauguration of the new

113 The Raffles Museum Library and Museum, Report on the Raffles Library and Museum for the Year 1882 (Singapore, 1882).

39 building was the staff expanded to include a collector and a taxidermist. So small was the budget that the largest single portion of the museums’ budget went to salaries instead of acquiring new acquisitions or conducting expeditions.114 Finally, in 1912, a director was appointed.115 However, the director continued to execute maintenance tasks alongside his primary responsibilities of research and collecting.

Despite its struggles, the museum became increasingly visible to the public in the late colonial period. Its exhibitions and acquisitions were advertised in local newspapers. Its directors-cum-curators delivered public talks at schools regularly.116 Staff members hosted shows on Radio Malaya.117 While collecting activities remained stagnant, the reading room was frequented by naval officers, travelers, and naturalists, who consulted the reference library, then, one of the largest in the region.118 Indeed, the museum was a center for the production of scientific literature: it accommodated the headquarters of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic

Society, which published research on natural history in the Society’s journal.119 The museum also published the Bulletin of the Raffles Museum, which was devoted to research on the collections. A photograph of the Raffles Museum’s fish room attests to its emphasis on nature: its dictionary-like layout of the specimens gives the impression of a complete, comprehensive collection of Singaporean fish. [Fig. 6].

The museum and library also gradually became more and more embedded into the local community. For instance, the ratio of local library subscribers to European ones increased to three to one. This increase in local interest was partly due to the extended library services via

114 Sheets-Pyenson, ‘Cathedrals of Science’, 286. 115 Teo Moey, ‘Singapore National Museum. History and Future’, 16. 116 ‘Talk at Museum’, The Straits Times, 22 February 1955, 5. 117 The Raffles Museum, Report of the Raffles Museum 1956 (Singapore, 1956). 118 Brendan Luyt, ‘Collectors and Collecting for the Raffles Museum in Singapore: 1920–1940’, Library & Information History 26, no. 3 (September 2010): 190. 119 Luyt, 190.

40 satellite branches across the island and the removal of subscription fees.120 The museum’s educational programs invited local school pupils to visit the premises, children comprising the majority of the visitors.121 From the early twentieth century on, the museum reports note that the staff could not “complain about the lack of interest, at least on the part of the natives”: hundreds of locals visited the museum on ordinary days [Fig. 7].122 This number reached tens of thousands during holidays.123 For instance, in 1927, when Singapore’s population was 450,000, the museum had 298,546 annual visitors with 29,562 coming in on the Lunar New Year holiday.

With the continuous free admission, the high number of visitors persisted through the 1920s and

1930s.124 Other groups of visitors were sourced from the ships that docked in Singapore, carrying with them Japanese and European tourists.125

The late nineteenth-century natural history museum in such as the ones in

Washington D.C. and London often accumulated international and encyclopedic collections.126

While the twentieth-century colonial museums were modelled on such institutions, they differed from their comprehensive metropolitan precedents by emphasizing the specifics of their surroundings. This emphasis on the immediate climate was rooted in a shift in colonial governance. Indeed, the colonial collections mirrored a late colonial administrative urge to render distinct the peoples who were colonized and governed.127 The concept of “Malaya”

120 ‘More Asian Readers in Colony’, The Straits Times, 30 January 1953, 3. 121 ‘Raffles Museum Is Just “Junk in the Gloom”,’ The Straits Times, 13 December 1955, 8. 122 Hanitsch, ‘Raffles Library and Museum, Singapore’, 566. 123 Hanitsch, 566. 124 Barnard, Nature Contained, 195. 125 Chor lin Lee, ‘The National Museum of Singapore In Its 120th Year: Disconnecting and Reconnecting with the People’, in Making Museums Matter. ASEAN Museum Directors’ Symposium: A Post Symposium Publication (Singapore: National Heritage Board, 2008), 102. 126 Sheets-Pyenson, ‘Cathedrals of Science’, 282. 127 Sheets-Pyenson, 287.

41 unified disparate peoples and territories into a single, administrative category. The construction of a “Malaya” was tied to a new school of colonial government that aimed at governing colonial subjects by “their own tradition,” a political practice that begged the construction of notions of

“locals.”128 This emphasis on the local was reflected in the Raffles Museum, which increasingly focused on its immediate Malayan “hinterland.”

Over the years, a number of institutions and private individuals in the Philippines, China, and Japan had deposited large collections of “prehistorica” in the Raffles Museum.129 However, as the need to render distinct its local surroundings intensified, the “Far Eastern” emphasis and comparative collections were downplayed and replaced with an intentional emphasis on

Malaya’s past.130 By 1908, as announced in a guide book, the museum’s displays were largely restricted to the Malay world.131

In the late colonial period, the collecting patterns were no longer dominated by commercial interests as had been the case under the directorship of Collins. The emphasis on the

“local” inaugurated a shift from nature to culture and the separation of cultural objects from those of natural history. The division of nature from culture coincided with the construction of a rear block that was attached to the back of the museum building. In 1906, this extension was exclusively reserved for the zoological collection. By 1916, another extension for the library was completed, leaving the original building for museum use only. Books and objects were separated as the museum space was cleared for the display of artifacts rather than scientific research. By

1925, the museum had a room dedicated to archaeology of the Malay peninsula with “old maps,”

128 Arindam Dutta, ‘Style / Theosophies: Character and Descent in the Celtic Revival’, in India in Art in Ireland, ed. Kathleen James-Chakraborty (London: Routledge, 2017), 128. 129 The Raffles Museum Library and Museum, Annual Report of the Raffles Museum and Library for the Year 1935 (Singapore, 1935). 130 The Raffles Museum Library and Museum, Annual Report of the Raffles Museum and Library for the Year 1954 (Singapore, 1954). 131 Wright, Twentieth Century Impressions of British Malaya, 242.

42 pictures, gravestones, prehistoric stones, and ethnography.132 The museum also accommodated a gallery specifically for ethnography [Fig. 8]. This emphasis on ethnography was cemented in

1949, when the role of the curator was divided into two curatorial positions – one of anthropology and one of zoology. While the cultural objects were displayed in a similar manner to those of nature, the spatial and conceptual division of disciplines attested to an increasing focus on the specifics of Malaya’s culture.133

Parallel to the “thickening” of local culture, a formation of “British” culture in Malaya also occurred. The Raffles Museum became a site for colonial self-documentation: the museum and its library collected Government documents, newspapers, gazettes, and dispatches from the foundation of the Colony.134 The 1919 centenary celebration of Raffles’ arrival prompted the creation of a British historical collection, which included “old maps,” official portraits of governors, and stamps specific to the Malayan civil service.135 The urge to self-document was institutionalized when the museum appointed an archivist. Tan Soo Chye had trained in Batavia, today’s Jakarta, under archivist Frans Rijndert Johan Verhoeven and was employed in 1938 to help organize British newspapers. Thus, the museum served to render distinct both colonizer and colonized: the natural history collection was transformed into a collection of Malayan culture that simultaneously encourage the visibility of a “British” culture. These colonial constructions ultimately laid the foundation for a national Malayan culture. For instance, Tan’s legacy –

132 Stephanie Yeo, ed., Dome in the City: The Story of the National Museum of Singapore (National Museum Singapore, 2016), 17. 133 Government of Singapore, Colony of Singapore Annual Report 1957 (Singapore: Government Printing Office of Singapore, 1957), 149. 134 Government of Singapore, 149. 135 Teo Moey, ‘Singapore National Museum. History and Future’, 23.

43 documenting the colonial self – was a precursor to what later became the National Archives and

Records Centre in 1967, a site for documenting the national self.136

With its intensified definition of regional specificity, the Raffles Museum, like other

“peripheral” colonial museums, became engaged with the preservation of local flora and fauna.137 The collections reflected colonial officers’ imaginaries of a fertile and authentic

Malayan nature, a nature that now was disappearing. Instead of sending exhibits back to the , the Raffles Museum staff was increasingly preoccupied with the preservation of the territories from where objects were extracted, for instance, by advocating for nature reservoirs.138

This urge to regional preservation is reflected in the two post-War directors Michael Tweedie and Carl Alexander Gibson-Hill. In contrary to the generation of Collins who had linked the museum to natural exploitation, the museum’s late colonial directors were involved with the conservation of this very same nature.

Tweedie, a geologist trained at the University of Cambridge, took up the position as assistant curator at the Raffles Museum in 1932 where he served until 1938. In 1948, after the

Japanese Occupation, he was appointed museum director. During his directorship, Tweedie became an autodidact biologist and undertook studies of regional species of marine and freshwater crabs, snakes, and fish. Tweedie also became involved in archaeological investigations of stone age sites in Malaya, which earned him the endearing title of Malaya’s

“Ice Age expert.”139

136 Fiona Tan, ‘Pioneers of the Archives’, Biblioasia. The Archives Issue. The National Archives Turn 50 15, no. 1 (2019): 14. 137 Sheets-Pyenson, ‘Cathedrals of Science’, 293. 138 Barnard, Nature Contained, 195. 139 The Singapore Free Press, ‘Malaya Loses Its Ice Age Expert’, The Singapore Free Press, 7 May 1957, 4.

44 While the museum continued commercial work – in 1956 it took on a study of Malayan prawns on behalf of the prawn pond industry –, Tweedie steered the museum in a new direction.140 Rather than seeing himself primarily as an agent of commerce as Collins did,

Tweedie took on the role to preserve the nature and culture he studied. In 1957, his retirement speech was radio broadcasted. Reflecting on his legacy of museum work, Tweedie warned that

Singapore witnessed the extinction of species, urging “the people of Malaya” to support game laws and the establishments of national parks and reserves. According to Tweedie, such initiatives would counter the “destruction of forests and the draining and filling of swamps.”141

With Tweedie’s generation, the museum not only cemented the difference between nature and culture; it also became an advocate for conserving the distinct region of Malaya, the very land the museum had invented.

Tweedie’s viewpoint echoed the colonial reports that also mourned the loss of flora and fauna. The colonial administration reminisced the time when tigers “still roamed around.”142

While Singapore originally had been “very similar to that of the wooded lowlands of the

Southern Malaya,” the island was now “impoverished considerably”143 As a result, the

Government established nature reserves of the “remnants of the original vegetation of Singapore

Island.”144 The island’s “samples” of nature demonstrated Singapore’s natural affiliation with the

Malay world. The Malay peninsula still accommodated “large areas of forests,” landscapes that were disappearing in Singapore: as Singapore modernized, Malaya remained the “authentic” version.145 The peninsula’s actual nature was turned into a reflection of the island’s past. On the

140 The Raffles Museum, Report of the Raffles Museum 1956. 141 Michael Tweedie, ‘“Nature Conservation.” A Farewell Radio Malaya Broadcast by Mr. M. Tweedie, Director of Raffles Museum’ (Singapore Government, 11 July 1957). 142 Government of Singapore, Colony of Singapore Annual Report 1953, 231. 143 Government of Singapore, 230. 144 Government of Singapore, 234. 145 Government of Singapore, 234.

45 island, the “great riches” of Malayan flora could now only be found in small patches in nature reservoirs of Bukit Timah and Collins’ botanical gardens.146

In 1955, the Raffles Museum became a separate institution from the Raffles Library. The

Governor of Singapore appointed Gibson-Hill director of the museum in 1957. He took over from Tweedie and served until 1963 as the last expat director. Gibson-Hill was also a graduate of natural sciences from the University of Cambridge. Prior to arriving at the Raffles Museum, he had served as Resident Medical Officer on the Christmas Islands in 1938 where he started his amateur studies of local zoology. He was interned during the Japanese Occupation but subsequently took up the post as assistant curator and curator of zoology at the Raffles Museum.

He documented Malayan species, and his scientific drawings were often published in the museum’s reports [Fig. 9] He continued his interests in marine zoology, became a self-taught ornithologist, and further, like Tweedie, steered the collection in the direction of preservation.147

Like his predecessors, Gibson-Hill took on numerous roles outside the museum. His activities emphasized his interest in local culture: he served as Chairman of the Singaporean

Malay Arts and Craft Society and enacted President of the Singapore Art Society. Gibson-Hill also supplied information on buildings of historic interest to the Town-planning Department of the Singapore Improvement Trust and the Committee for the Preservation of Historic Sites and

Antiquities in Singapore. His engagement with the modernization of Singapore’s landscape and cityscape underlined the double role of the museum: the institution created, destroyed, and preserved Malaya’s nature and culture.

Using the museum darkroom amenities, Gibson-Hill contributed to the invention of an authentic Malayan culture with his prolific photographic depictions of the Colony. He often

146 Government of Singapore, 236. 147 Gretchen Liu, One Hundred Years of the National Museum, Singapore, 1887-1987 (The Museum, 1987), 61.

46 documented “traditional” scenes such locals at “festivals” and “wet markets,” but also recorded

“development” such as new housing [Fig. 10]. Gibson-Hill co-founded the Singapore Camera

Society and his photographs were disseminated in the Straits Times and in the Annual Reports of the Colony [Fig. 11 and 12]. The lens of Gibson-Hill portrays Singapore as an island of contradiction that accommodated both the old and the new. His photographs detailed scenes of prayer that at once adhered to tradition and absorbed modern uses of “microphones” and

“electricity.” He captured “pure” Singapore street scenes while working with town planners to clear “overcrowded” dwellings.

Like the disappearing nature, “culture” was also threatened by modernity. Similar to

Tweedie’s call for natural preservations, Gibson-Hill’s photographs expressed an anxiety about losing the “authentic” culture in Singapore. However, the enterprise of the museum was one of doubleness. On the one hand, the museum arrested the extinction of “untouched” nature and culture by documenting the island and collecting “authentic” artifacts. On the other hand, the museum was an agent of colonialism and modernity. “Modernity” and the “native” were two facets of the same coin: the so-named cultural authenticity was created by colonial officers.

Tradition was another name for modernity, paradoxically announcing a departure from this very tradition.148

The continuous quest for a Malayan culture also manifested itself in archaeological expeditions.149 In 1937, the Raffles Museum joined the Federation Museums Department in

Malaya in excavating parts of the peninsula, a project that was supported by the Carnegie

Corporation of New York.150 Continuing this effort, in 1954, Tweedie participated in an

148 Dutta, ‘Style / Theosophies’, 103. 149 The Raffles Museum Library and Museum, Annual Report of the Raffles Museum and Library for the Year 1951 (Singapore, 1951). 150 The Raffles Museum Library and Museum, Annual Report of the Raffles Museum and Library for the Year 1954.

47 expedition to a Stone Age cave in , where graves, pottery, and tools were excavated.151

The Raffles Museum’s participation in archaeological fieldwork in the Federation territories contributed to the idea of a monolithic Malaya consisting of both the Malay peninsula and

Singapore: the ancient objects were proof of the cultural connection.152 This pan-Malayan affinity in nature and culture was already established under the directorship of Collins who extracted his natural exhibits from the peninsula. Collins’s collection activities also relied on labor in Malaya: Collins announced, “many residents in the Native States” of Malaya had promised to collect for the Museum.153

Beyond archaeological findings, contemporary “authentic” handicraft informed the molding of a Malayan culture: the Raffles Museum acquired local exhibits of “Malayan interests” that reflected a “Malayan outlook.”154 The Raffles Museum carried out a “complete re- arrangement of the exhibits” in the anthropological collections with the purpose of isolating material from the Malay peninsula: large collections from Borneo, Sumatra, and Java were retained to emphasize “Malayan cultures.”155 In September 1951, the Sunday Standard reported that the museum had changed its anthropological displays to exclusively focus on “Malay life, architecture and craft.”156 The museum collected basket work, metal work, and pottery from the towns Alor Merah and Kampung Sayong from the Malay peninsula states of Kedah and Perak.157

The museum report of 1951 warned, “these places are the only ones where pottery is still made

151 The Raffles Museum Library and Museum. 152 The Raffles Museum, Report of the Raffles Museum 1956. 153 The Raffles Museum Library and Museum, Report on the Raffles Library and Museum for the Year 1876 (Singapore, 1876). 154 The Singapore Standard, ‘Plans for Raffles Museum to Place Greater Emphasis on Local Exhibits’, The Singapore Standard, 1 July 1959, 4. 155 The Raffles Museum Library and Museum, Annual Report of the Raffles Museum and Library for the Year 1948 (Singapore, 1948). 156 The Sunday Standard, ‘Museum Has Made Great Progress’, The Sunday Standard, 2 September 1951, 3. 157 The Raffles Museum Library and Museum, Annual Report of the Raffles Museum and Library for the Year 1951.

48 in Malaya.”158 In an attempt to preserve “traditions,” Gibson-Hill documented the craftwork in progress. His photographs later accompanied the ethnographic specimens on display [Fig. 13].159

Parallel to the museum’s invention of “Malaya,” the colonial Government created a notion of a distinct culture in Singapore. According to the colonial Government, “in over one hundred years of commercial and political stability the fine arts have taken root in Singapore and made it a local entre for music, drama and painting.”160 Within the hybrid cosmopolis, traditional arts from many communities merged, “producing new forms ranging from the severely classical to the frankly popular.”161 In Singapore, ancient, “purer forms” co-exited with European tendencies.162 It was a site where the arts of the “West” and the “East” converged.163 Malaya was the original mother-culture and Singapore existed as a fusion sub-category to this “authentic”

Malaya.

In the Raffles Museum too “Malaya” included a variety of communities: the museum aimed to reflect the diversity of Chinese, Indian, and Malay cultures to more accurately reflect the hybrid, cosmopolitan Singapore. In 1954, the museum appointed a committee with the task of planning a collection of art “representative of the cultures of the main Asian inhabitants of

Singapore.”164 Among the consultants were the director of the museum as well as local scholars such as Tungku Muda Mohamed and Inche J’afar bin d’Abdul Chani, who advised on Malay art;

Mr Han Wai Toon and Mr Lee Siow Mong, whose expertise was Chinese art; Mr A. N. Mitra

158 The Raffles Museum Library and Museum. 159 The Raffles Museum Library and Museum. 160 Government of Singapore, Colony of Singapore Annual Report 1954 (Singapore: Government Printing Office of Singapore, 1954), 219. 161 Government of Singapore, 29. 162 Government of Singapore, 222. 163 Government of Singapore, Colony of Singapore Annual Report 1957, 297. 164 The Raffles Museum Library and Museum, Annual Report of the Raffles Museum and Library for the Year 1954.

49 and Mr Natarajan, who advised on Indian art.165 “Malaya” did not belong to a single race or ethnicity but was a term that captured the breadth of the cultures of the island and peninsula.

Outside the museum, a Malayan culture was being institutionalized. The Singapore Arts

Council was founded in 1955 to manage the scattered private art organizations.166 By 1957, the

Government approved a grant for the Fine Arts and Cultural Relations Section within the

Ministry of Education that was headed by a Cultural Affairs Officer.167 A Cultural Advisory

Council was appointed to establish cultural schemes that aimed at “providing stimulus to develop various cultures represented in Singapore”; “co-ordinate and encourage private efforts in the any field of the arts”; and culturally “educate the ordinary citizen.”168 Among such efforts was an exhibition at the Geylang Community Center in December 1957.169 The display included a range of drawings, paintings, needlework, handicraft, and cookery created by the residents and members of the Geylang community, a historical Malay-Muslim area.

As mentioned in Chapter One, the systematic creation of a “Malayan” culture entered the political scene with the foundation of the Ministry of Culture in 1959. The Raffles Museum was categorized as “culture” when it was transferred from the Ministry of Education to the one of

Culture.170 “Culture” now became a means to disseminate the PAP’s policies and visions.

Beyond radio broadcastings, the Ministry organized exhibitions to demonstrate to the people

“how a democratic Government works after it has derived its authority from the people.”171

Similarly, the Ministry produced and screened films to promote its visions of a new nation.172

165 The Raffles Museum Library and Museum. 166 Government of Singapore, Colony of Singapore Annual Report 1957, 297. 167 Government of Singapore, 297. 168 Government of Singapore, 297. 169 ‘Text of A Speech by the Hon’ble Mr. Chew Swee Kee at the Opening of the Exhibition at the Geylang Community Association’ (Singapore Government, 23 December 1957). 170 Government of Singapore, State of Singapore Annual Report 1959, 9. 171 Government of Singapore, 200. 172 Government of Singapore, 201.

50 The Ministry was also in charge of creating new national symbols such as a national flag and the national anthem Majulah Singapura.173

The Raffles Museum staff demographics were also affected by nationalist efforts. The

“Malayanisation” scheme advocated for the inclusion of locals in the civil service, and in accordance with this new policy, two local graduates were employed at the museum. In 1957,

Eric Alfred was appointed curator of zoology and Christopher Hooi was appointed curator of anthropology. Both Alfred and Hooi later served as directors of the National Museum.174 Hooi was also active outside the museum’s walls and instrumental to the creation of a nationalist culture, efforts that contributed to the conversion of the colonial museum into a national one.

Hooi was part of planning the Government’s cultural initiatives, which included the

Ministry of Culture’s “cultural concerts.” Held at the botanical gardens, the performances presented music inspired by Malay, Chinese, Western, and Tamil traditions.175 Such concerts were part of the Ministry’s program that aimed at fostering a Malayan culture: by bringing together the various communities of Singapore, it was hoped that the “various cultures” would interact and give expression to a “truly” Malayan culture.176 The people’s concerts were held on special, national occasions at the City Hall steps and fortnightly in the island’s rural areas.

Thousands of artists participated, and at times, the audience totaled 320,000.177

The crowds at the cultural concerts dwarfed the number of visitors at the museum, suggesting that “culture” as a political instrument was being shaped outside the walls of the museum. Indeed, the Ministry of Culture was reluctant to offer funds to the Raffles Museum. In

173 Government of Singapore, 21. 174 The Raffles Museum, Report of the Raffles Museum 1956. 175 Government of Singapore, State of Singapore Annual Report 1959, 21. 176 Government of Singapore, 200. 177 Government of Singapore, 200.

51 the late colonial moment, the museum received decreasing and significantly less funds than the library: in 1957, the museum was supported with $156,023, whereas in 1959, it received only

$121,498.178 On the contrary, the library received increasing funds during the years of 1957-

1959, receiving a total of $267,120 in 1959.179 The library expanded: its total number of publications increased from 505,415 in 1958 to 654,176 in 1959, and with free memberships, the numbers of library users also increased rapidly.180 The decrease in museum funds suggests that the museum was seen as less crucial for the construction of a national identity during the early days of the new Ministry of Culture. Despite exhibitions such as the Indian Art Exhibition, which connected the museum to the PAP’s politics, the Raffles Museum held an indeterminant political position before being fully adopted into nation building.

Even with the name change of the Raffles Museum to the National Museum in 1960, its political trajectory was uncertain and unclear. The National Museum remained mainly a research institution and continued to be understaffed with limited funds, tossed between ministries.181 In

1968, the museum was transferred to the Ministry of Science and Technology.182 Finally, in

1972, the museum was moved back to the Ministry of Culture when it was environed as a platform for Singapore’s history, art, and ethnology.183 It was also during the early 1970s that the museum’s natural and cultural collections were physically separated: the “natural” specimens were transferred to the University of Singapore where they served as objects of research.184

As the PAP’s nationalist narrative solidified throughout the 1980s, the museum was also framed in a different light. The colonial collection that had rendered Malaya’s nature and later

178 Government of Singapore, 75. 179 Government of Singapore, 75. 180 Government of Singapore, 205. 181 Liu, One Hundred Years of the National Museum, Singapore, 1887-1987, 62. 182 Yeo, Dome in the City, 28. 183 Teo Moey, ‘Singapore National Museum. History and Future’, 28. 184 Barnard, Nature Contained, 201.

52 culture visible to the colonial officers was claimed as a “very Singaporean” collection by local researchers.185 In the early 1990s, the National Heritage Board was founded to systematically organize Singapore’s museum institutions. The National Museum was renamed the Singapore

History Museum and its new purpose was to disseminate Lee Kuan Yew’s “Singapore Story.”

With its new brand, the museum distinguished itself from the Singapore Art Museum, a contemporary art museum which opened in 1996; and the Asian Civilisation Museum, an anthropological and archaeological museum, which opened in 1997 and adopted the Raffles

Museum’s ethnographic collection.186 Stripped from its collections of nature and culture, the museum finally opened in 2006, returning to its 1960 name of “the National Museum of

Singapore” as a space where national history was disseminated and displayed.

The Raffles Museum accommodated a shift from colonial to national, and nature to culture. This path towards integrating the museum into a nationalist cultural canon was not obvious and spanned decades of indeterminacy and uncertainty. The museum’s natural history collection began as a search for revenue potential and commercial exports. The natural specimens and samples later served to “thicken” the distinctiveness of “Malaya.” The notion of a

Malayan culture emerged from the natural objects as disciplines of archaeology and anthropology were separated from the natural sciences with the purpose of rendering visible the colonized. As modernization threatened colonial imaginations of nature and culture, the Raffles

Museum contributed to the conservation of its fictional authentic Malaya. The colonial definitions of Malaya were finally adopted and elaborated by the Ministry of Culture in independent Singapore.

185 Barnard, 209. 186 Guan, ‘Transforming the National Museum of Singapore’, 213.

53 Preserving Malaya’s Nature

During the late 1950s, museum director Michael Tweedie devised a “modernization” plan for the

Raffles Museum. He commenced a “drastic face-lift” and disclosed to the Singapore Standard that “thousands of dollars” were to be spent on the “most ambitious plan ever.”187 According to

Tweedie, the aim was twofold: first, he aspired to meet international museum standards, and secondly, he wished to “keep the public interest in the museum alive.”188 The “improvements” reflected a new desire to comply with “universal” museum practices as well as a new curatorial and pedagogical attention to museum visitors. Tweedie’s aspirational “developments” were much in line with the emerging preservation sector operated by the United Nations Educational,

Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The internationalist museum practices reached the Raffles Museum by way of an expert from the United Nations’ Technical Assistance program

(TA). The expert initiated a collaboration between the museum and international organizations, which ultimately resulted in the preservation of colonial imaginations of “nature” and “culture” in the guise of “development.”

In October of 1956, Dr A. N. Van der Hoop, a UNESCO advisor, arrived at the Colony from the Paris headquarters. Opinion pieces in Singaporean newspapers supported the museum staff in their invitation of “American, Japanese, or European experts from UNESCO”: one such foreign advisor would help the museum become “an integral and exciting part” of the island’s culture.189 The expert was already familiar with natural history collections in the greater Malay world: he was a former curator with fifteen years of experience from the then Dutch .

Further, Van der Hoop had become acquainted with the Raffles Museum in 1938, when

187 The Singapore Standard, ‘Museum Is Having Drastic Face-Lift’, 10 January 1956, 4. 188 The Singapore Standard. 189 The Straits Times, ‘Doing More for the National Museum’, The Straits Times, 3 July 1965, 8.

54 Singapore hosted a week-long conference on “Far Eastern” prehistory, where he had met the former museum director, F. N. Chasen, and Tweedie, then curator.190

A 1956 press photo in the Singapore Standard depicts director Tweedie and Van der

Hoop, holding a “rare piece of gold hand-woven Malay cloth” [Fig. 14].191 The museum workers embodied the two generations who had created Malaya’s nature and culture – first, the colonial officer and, later, the UN expert. Just as the personas spanned the era of colonialism with that of independence, so did the ethnographic object span the evolving meanings of “natural history”: the “cloth” had been conceived as “nature” before it was transferred into the realm of culture.

Van der Hoop’s stay in Singapore was short. Three months after his arrival to the Colony, the expert returned to the small town of Voorburg in the , where he completed his report from his “mission to the Raffles Museum.”192 The report was submitted to the director of the TA in Paris in January, 1957, and was the conclusion of one of his many tasks as a museum advisor to UNESCO. The account was a fourteen-pages-long description of the museum, its facilities, and activities. Importantly, the report included a list of recommendations on the possibility of modernizing the institution.

The expert’s international museum endeavors continued the contradictory enterprises of the colonial museum as one that created, destroyed, and preserved Malaya’s nature and culture.

On the one hand, the recommendations welcomed the necessary “development” of Singapore: the museum had to keep up with modern museum standards. On the other hand, the recommendations were entangled with the colonial urge to preserve imaginaries of authentic

“nature” and “culture”: like the colonial officers, the expert assumed the museum to represent an

190 The Singapore Standard, ‘Expert to Work for Raffles Museum’, The Singapore Standard, 8 November 1956, 3. 191 The Singapore Standard. 192 A. N. J. Van der Hoop, ‘The Raffles Museum Singapore’ (Voorburg, January 1957), 1.

55 exterior world that was disappearing. Of course, this “real” world had only ever existed within the walls of the institution as colonial imaginaries.

Conveniently, Van der Hoop’s expertise lay within the “present-day methods of preserving museum exhibits under tropical conditions.”193 Indeed, the largest part of the

“modernization” report was dedicated to the topic of preservation in a tropical climate. The expert offered an extensive overview of insecticides including DDT, naphthalene, paradichlorobenzene, methyl bromide, and nitrobenzene [Fig. 15]. The list was accompanied by instructions on how to use the chemicals based on the expert’s own experience from his museum work in Jakarta. Despite the known dangers that the use of chemicals would pose to staff members’ health, he urged the museum to employ such harsh means. He further strongly encouraged the museum to hire staff “exclusively for insect control.”194 Underlining the seriousness of the threat caused by tropical insects, the expert stressed that this employee “should spend all his time on it. He should get no other orders.”195 While Van der Hoop saw himself as performing essential services to save the collections, he was somewhat misled by the perceived dangers of the insects. What threatened to render extinct the colonial imagined nature was not nature itself but the expert’s own practice of modernization.

Despite the paradox of his advice, Van der Hoop insisted that the challenge of insects that faced the museum required a full refurbishment of its interior. To combat insects, the museum had to be divided into “edible” and “non-edible” materials. He recommended that the material of the cases be only well-seasoned “insect-proof wood” such as teak. Ideally, wooden cases were replaced by metal and glass ones. The Dutch authority asserted his recommendations with much

193 The Singapore Standard, ‘Expert to Work for Raffles Museum’, 3. 194 Hoop, ‘The Raffles Museum Singapore’, 6. 195 Hoop, 6.

56 confidence and underlined that other senior museum staff members supported his directions: a certain Dr Lieftinck, curator of the State Museum for Natural History at Leiden and former

Director of the Zoological Museum at Bogor, Indonesia, approved these strict but necessary measures.196

Air-conditioning was also perceived as a way of controlling insects. Supposedly, mechanical ventilation manipulated the natural habitat of the pests, turning the museum’s otherwise equatorial climate cool and dry.197 Arguably, Van der Hoop’s aim was to transform the museum into a bubble of its own “temperate” environment: only if enclosed inside the museum walls and shielded from the tropics outside could the natural and cultural specimens be protected.198 “Clear” air would conserve the exhibits as eternal, true representations of Malaya.

Further, air-conditioning served not only to suppress pests but also to mitigate the discomforts of humidity and heat, which colonial officers long had deemed “unsuitable” for efficient work.199

The “purification” of the air would transform the undesirable tropics into a “comfortable” climate that would enable museum staff to thrive and pests to suffer.

Van der Hoop also provided recommendations on how to manage sunlight – another feature of the tropical climate. According to the expert, natural light should be restricted since it was “detrimental” to materials such as paper and textiles.200 Artificial light was “not as bad as daylight,” but precious objects should not be shown permanently.201 His concerns for preservation of objects in the tropics were entangled with a new curatorial attention: lighting was

196 Hoop, 11. 197 Hoop, 8. 198 Lucia Allais, Designs of Destruction: The Making of Monuments in the Twentieth Century, First edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 180. 199 Jiat-Hwee Chang, ‘Deviating Discourse: Tay Kheng Soon and the Architecture of Postcolonial Development in Tropical Asia’, Journal of Architectural Education 63, no. 2 (March 2010): 157. 200 Hoop, 11. 201 Hoop, 11.

57 particularly important to facilitate an optimal viewing experience for the visitors. To manufacture this viewing experience, the museum had to comply with new international museum standards that considered intentional lighting to be essential to “good” display practice.

To this end, Van der Hoop advised on increasing indoor lighting. Tweedie responded to this recommendation by installing glass cases with both artificial and overhead lighting. The two museum officers were hopeful about the curatorial transformation of the collections: artificial lighting allowed the museum to expand its opening hours and would thereby attract visitors from a broad audience. “Taming” the tropics – insects, humidity, and light – was essential: a

“temperate” museum climate not only enabled preservation of the museum’s objects but also increased the quality of the curatorial displays and the staff members’ productivity. Ironically, the idea of the menacing tropics was rooted in a colonial imagination of Malaya’s “authentic” nature, the very nature that the museum also was anxious to preserve with “modern” practices.

As part of the new curatorial improvements, Van der Hoop proposed a reorganization of the collection that would transform it from what he perceived as a mere repository of objects to a pedagogical site with deliberately designed displays. The expert launched a museum plan that was less concerned with the contents of the glass cases than the cases themselves: the new strategy focused on the framing of the exhibits. According to Van der Hoop, the museum should make a clear distinction between trained scholars and an untrained public to better tailor the visitors’ experience, giving priority to non-expert visitors. He advised the museum to label the artifacts with information and anecdotes to capture the lay viewers’ imagination. He also encouraged the museum to alter the layout of the over-crowded, “congested” public collections: both the tropics and the museum were stuffy places in need of air circulation, purification, and cleaning. “In a modern museum,” Van der Hoop lectured, “only part of the collections” is

58 shown.202 The aim was not to boastingly present all exhibits since this would exhaust the visitor.

In fact, the majority of the collection was to be “strictly and systematically” kept in a reference room.203 Only ten to twenty per cent of the collections should be on display at any given time.

In general, Van der Hoop was hopeful about the museum’s prospect of modernization.

He noted that the museum was favorably located between Singapore’s residential and business areas, a location that encouraged the public to incorporate the museum into their everyday life.

While the museum land itself was sparse and did not allow for extensions, the expert predicted that the planned relocation of the library to a building of its own would free up space. By then, he speculated, most rooms would be turned into galleries, and the viewers would be able to circulate organically in the collection. This movement of the crowds was partly facilitated by a covered bridge that connected the front and the rear building. Van der Hoop advised the construction of another bridge to make even smoother the bodily experience of visiting the museum space. The goal was to make the museum comfortable and accessible for the new nation’s citizens and to carefully curate a display that would make visitors return.

Much aligned with UNESCO’s vision, Van der Hoop perceived culture as a form of diplomacy. Preservation practices could advance not only a better understanding of the nation’s self but also relationships between nations. To this end, the advisor recommended the establishment of an art gallery. The proposed gallery was conceived with future collaborations between Singapore and the Federation of Malaya in mind. Since the Raffles Museum long had been a center for collecting, Van der Hoop believed that it could help “smaller museums in the

Federation with loan collections.”204 He also imagined the dissemination of the museum’s

202 Hoop, 2. 203 Hoop, 4. 204 Hoop, 13.

59 collections in Malaya in the form of travelling exhibitions that could reach places without a museum venue. The exchange of exhibitions would support the formation of local arts and bolster a sense of solidarity between the island and the peninsula.205 The objects’ return to their

Malayan “hinterland” would visualize and confirm the imagined “authenticity” of their places of origins.

As part of the new curatorial and pedagogical strategy, Van der Hoop advised the museum to accommodate “museum activities” such as guided tours for school pupils by a specialized educational officer. He advocated for maps made specifically for museum purposes as a productive “means to further the educational value of the museum.”206 However, the expert deemed actual archaeological maps and historic colonial survey maps in the museum’s possession “unfit,” “complicated,” and “difficult to read” for a lay audience.207 To further explain the museum exhibits, the expert suggested the publishing of a guide book. Finally, to keep the public interest alive, the museum should only display temporary exhibitions of no longer than six months to keep everything “in constant movement.”208

This new pace of museum exhibitions was entangled with the commercialization of museums in which displays aimed to mimic department stores. Not unlike a shopping complex where air-conditioning provided comfort from the tropical heat and where “good” lighting elicited excitement, the museum was on its way to become a place of aesthetic consumption.

Historically, the museum staff had long contributed to illustrated guides to the region. The museum was already part of the repertoire of tourist destinations in Singapore for ship passengers to visit. Van der Hoop advised the museum to profit from its international

205 Hoop, 13. 206 Hoop, 11. 207 Hoop, 11. 208 Hoop, 5.

60 recognition, for instance, by setting up a small book-stall in the entrance hall with postcards of the museum’s exhibits. Again, the museum connoisseur’s advice was one of contradiction: by catering to tourists, the museum would reinforce the colonial belief that an unspoiled nature actually existed, prompt the preservation of this untouched Malaya nature, and accelerate the destruction of this same “authentic” nature.

Other activities suggested by the expert also aimed at promoting the “value” of the museum. He encouraged the staff to host lectures, photograph projections, film screenings, and radio programs.209 Beyond its walls, the museum could reach the public by announcing new acquisitions in newspapers. The expert also thought it beneficial to build a relationship with the press and invite journalists to the museum premises regularly. Finally, the institution could “lean on prominent citizens” to help cover the expenses.210 Since the expert predicted that the museum would continue with scarce financial governmental support, its survival could be secured by a community of donors or a “friends of the museum group.”211

A huge obstacle to the implementation of the modern “improvements” was the shortage of staff members. Van der Hoop lamented the lack of employers: the stable was “hardly enough for a museum of this size, more so because it contains two totally different departments,” one of anthropology and one of zoology.212 According to the expert, the museum required two trained taxidermists and several draftsmen.213 The doctor also advised the museum to hire junior staff members and museum assistants to conduct inventories, arrange displays, and other “routine- work” to relieve the curators of burdensome tasks.214

209 Hoop, 6. 210 Hoop, 6. 211 Hoop, 14. 212 Hoop, 3. 213 Hoop, 2. 214 Hoop, 3.

61 As mentioned, the aim was no longer encyclopedic. Quite the contrary, the museum space should be emptied out so as to not “clutter” it. Rather than a comprehensive visualization of Malaya’s nature, the expert suggested that the number of exhibits should be restricted as much as possible by displaying only the region’s most important animals. The museum was thus on its way to visually reproduce a caricature of the region it had invented: the new curatorial mode would distil Malaya’s nature into symbols of the tropics. As an example of this new display strategy, the advisor suggested exhibiting a “tiger.”

Van der Hoop proposed that one such exemplary tiger be displayed alongside its habitat with a background of dioramas carried out by “first class specialists.”215 The tiger exhibit should be accompanied by texts, statistics, and photographs. In particular, the expert believed that the labels should inform the public of the “natural” tiger’s hunting patterns. The labels should also include the “damage” caused by tigers to men; man’s utility of the tiger in the curbing of wild boars; the danger of the man-eating tiger; the practice of hunting tigers for prized trophies; weapons used against tigers; tiger traps; etc.

The choice of mammal echoed the science of taxonomy’s hierarchy of animals as well as an orientalist notion of Malaya. The dioramas would offer a scenic yet safe view of Malaya’s nature, and the tiger exhibit would confirm colonial imaginations of the picturesque and exotic island. The tiger symbolized a distinct and dangerous equatorial band, a sphere that was dominated by nature in all regards.216 Outside the museum, nature itself was violent and wild.

Only inside the museum could nature be tamed and preserved. To the expert, the tiger represented a “pure” nature. However, as evident in his curatorial texts, the animal also

215 Hoop, 4. 216 Vandana Baweja, ‘Otto Koenigsberger and the Tropicalization of British Architectural Culture’, in Third World Modernism (New York: Routledge, 2010), 237.

62 underlined overlaps between this untouched nature and civilization: it pointed to the paradox of the museum’s manipulated and domesticated displays of the “wild” and colonialism’s contradictory notion of nature.217 Indeed, while the tiger supposedly reflected a “true” nature of

Malaya, tigers had been extinct for decades in Singapore.

The expert’s push to modernize the museum as a way of saving the artifacts ignored the fact that modernization itself had destroyed the “real” nature represented by the exhibits. The

“challenges” of museum work were rooted in “modernization” itself more so than in the conditions of the tropical biome: while Van der Hoop identified the climate of the tropics as the main threat to the collection, his own modernizing endeavors and museum practices were entangled with structures that made vanish the “authentic” nature. The tiger represented nature’s beauty and savagery, eliciting a nostalgia for a Singapore that had existed only as colonial imaginations. In parallel fashion, the museum became an emblem of a disappearing nature and a container for a timeless image of its region.

Displays of “typical” specimens and their habitats against a backdrop of dioramas had been popular since the early twentieth century. Taxidermy complemented the realistic renderings of nature, yet without referring to any reality. It was a craft that transformed a fictional or extinct nature into a permanent and “real” one. Similarly, the diorama was an assumed “peephole into the jungle,” yet they were windows only into colonial imaginaries.218 The taxidermy displays of dead, stuffed animals “arrested decay,” returning life to an extinguished nature.219

While the collection “mourned” a lost nature, curbing the tropics was also a necessity. If left uncontrolled, this very “authentic” nature would become an obstacle to “good” museum

217 Hoop, ‘The Raffles Museum Singapore’, 5. 218 Donna Haraway, ‘Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908-1936’, Social Text 11, Winter (1984-1985): 24. 219 Haraway, 42.

63 practices and museum experiences. As a result, a strange acclimatization occurred in the museum: on the one hand, the museum offered a “temperate” micro-climate where sunlight, air- conditioning, and humidity were monitored to protect the objects from their natural habitats outside the walls of the museum. On the other hand, the museum accommodated the “real” tropics that were disappearing in the exterior world.

In 1965, the UNESCO selected the Raffles Museum to assist in research on the region’s marine fauna: with its valuable collection, the museum mirrored the distinct region it had created.220 Locals echoed this viewpoint: the public trusted the museum as an establishment that could visualize the island’s natural and cultural contents to its citizen.221 Similarly, the tiger exhibit solidified Singapore’s connection with Malaya even as Singapore had nothing

“authentic” left: Singapore’s modernization eventually resulted in its departure from “Malaya,” the old, authentic version of the island. The importance of “modernizing” the museum reflected larger political efforts to embrace science, development, and planning. UNESCO introduced the idea of “science as culture”: science and technology were the culture of the modern island. As the museum recorded and “museumized” its past, Singapore became modern: the concept of preservation distinguished the past from the future, allowing the island to be different from the

“old.” By “historicizing” Singapore, the museum facilitated imaginations of modernity.

Van der Hoop reinforced a colonial discourse that portrayed the tropics as both a dangerous and endangered environment, a rich yet scarce nature, and a nature that needed to be cared for and controlled. Inside the museum, nature was also conceptualized as a complicated, even contradictory, category. The tropical climate itself presented the biggest threat to the preservation of natural specimens. Paradoxically, the expert’s “modern” museum practices were

220 The Straits Times, ‘Doing More for the National Museum’, 8. 221 The Straits Times, ‘Doing More for the National Museum’, 8.

64 presented as solutions to the decay of the natural collections: the Raffles Museum anointed itself as in charge of the impossible task of saving its invented Malayan nature from nature itself, and indirectly, from the museum too.

The Dutch expert established a lineage of foreign advisors who assisted in the modernization of Singapore’s museums. Like Van der Hoop, the experts had experience from previous colonies and thus transferred museum practices from colonialism to nationalism and from one new nation to another. After the Dutch expert’s visit, Lothar P. Witteborg, former Head of Exhibition Department of the American Museum for Natural History in New York arrived at the Raffles Museum under the shadows of UNESCO. He was a previous advisor to the National

Museum of India and with this experience, he was entrusted with the task of devising of a plan for the new national museum.222 When in 1969, the Singapore Government planned to invest in a science center for educational purposes, UNESCO contributed 11 million dollars and also offered expertise on display techniques.223 Singapore continued to model its museum practices on American and Canadian precedents: even as late as in in the 1990s, George MacDonald from the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa was named the Director of the Development

Plans of the National Museum of Singapore.224

As the “Malayanisation” scheme advocated for the inclusion of local staff in the civil service, colonial officers were elevated to technical experts. Indeed, the UN allowed for aspects of the British and Dutch empires to continue into nationalism under the shadow of the TA. For instance, when the Singapore Government applied for help from the Technical Assistance, it was

Sir Alexander MacFarquhar, Senior Diplomat at the UN and previous civil servant in India, who

222 The Singapore Free Press, ‘Expert from America to Advise on Malaya’s New National Museum’, The Singapore Free Press, 17 August 1960, 8. 223 The Straits Times, ‘$11m UNESCO Help’, The Straits Times, 12 February 1969, 10. 224 Guan, ‘Transforming the National Museum of Singapore’, 202.

65 considered and approved requests.225 UNESCO assistants were part of this network of former colonial officers-turned-UN experts. Like Van der Hoop, these officials now contributed to the preservation of colonial inheritance. With its roots in post-war attempts to protect monuments from destruction, UNESCO was a “salvage campaign” that taught “local” leaders to care for colonial architecture and museums.226

The Raffles Museum’s accommodation of a UNESCO expert was symptomatic for the extensive UN development system: during the 1950s and 1960s “preservation” practices were incorporated into international schemes of economic planning, infrastructure development, and nation building.227 The TA headquarters was based in New York from where experts were recruited and fellowships granted in collaboration with the UN regional headquarters such as that in Thailand, the so-called Bangkok Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East.228 Between

1950 and 1957, the TA sent 602 experts to “Asia” and sponsored 1,491 fellowships and scholarships for locals to study abroad.229 Alongside the UN, the Colombo Plan of the British

Commonwealth also provided “assistance” in Asia.230 The Plan offered individuals in former

British Malaya to study abroad, which added another dimension to the circulation of expertise.

Locals attended universities in Australia, the US, and the UK via UN TA assistance awards,

Colombo Plan studentships, British Government scholarships, and US Government scholarships

225 United Nations, ‘United Nations Technical Assistance Mission in Singapore’, n.d., S-0175-1798-01, TE 322/5 SING, UN Archives. 226 Allais, Designs of Destruction, 26. 227 Allais, 4. 228 United Nations Department of Public Information, Helping Southeast Asia to Help Itself (New York: United Nations Print, 1957), 9. 229 United Nations Department of Public Information, 9. 230 United Nations Department of Public Information, 7.

66 and brought “back” foreign knowledge.231 Thus, colonial expertise and concepts were continuously enforced by locals who trained in the metropole to aid industrial development.232

From 1960-75, UNESCO experts conducted over 150 missions to former colonies and newly independent nations.233 This “cultural” work was informed by the language of the TA: preservation initiatives were carried out in places where diplomacy was needed to further UN development opportunities.234 The new internationalist bureaucracy contributed to turning independence into a question of administrative transition. As with the case of the Raffles

Museum, the experts visited museums and advised on how to “modernize,” “technologize,” and

“standardize” the institutions, which usually entailed a conversion of colonial concepts and infrastructures into national ones.235

Despite the large network of experts, UNESCO operated with a meagre budget and the majority of its projects were never constructed. Its schemes were not inaugurated; recommendations were not implemented; and committees appointed never met.236 Often the recommendations were too extensive to be carried out. The suggested modernization schemes were unfeasible financially and out of touch with the partner institutions. Like Van der Hoop, the

TA experts were posted only for a few months and had limited time to advice appropriately.

Indeed, it is unclear to what extent, if at all, the expert’s recommendations were implemented in the Raffles Museum.

231 Government of Singapore, Colony of Singapore Annual Report 1953, 96. 232 United Nations, ‘United Nations Technical Assistance Mission in Singapore’, n.d., S-0175-1798-01, TE 322/1 SING, UN Archives. 233 Allais, Designs of Destruction, 178. 234 Allais, 163. 235 Allais, 177. 236 Allais, 215.

67 While the Dutch expert offered specific advice on the Raffles Museum, his report also reflected general tendencies.237 For instance, UNESCO’s conservation manual from 1968 was concerned with managing pests. The manual included an overview of twenty-one species that were drawn, named, and categorized in a colonial manner of taxonomy.238 According to the manual’s map, pests occurred exclusively in the previously colonized world: the map represented only the southern hemisphere, where it located all case studies of insects’ impact on preservation.

Thus, UNESCO continued the colonial concept of nature: the tropics were at once a site of natural wealth that yielded resources and riches and a site of pestilences that degenerated health and morality.

Tropical nature posed not only a problem to cultural preservation but also to housing. For instance, “hygienic” initiatives that countered tropical rot were institutionalized with the founding of the Singapore Improvement Trust in 1927. This British colonial infrastructure spilled into the institutions of the UN: to improve housing standards, the UN established two centers in the “humid tropical zone” of Southeast Asia.239 In the booklet Helping Southeast Asia to Help Itself, the UN noted that “low building standards” and “lack of sanitation” promoted disease contaminations and led to “miserable lives.”240 The TA advised on town planning in

Singapore, urging the Government to replace “old housing” and clear up “overcrowded and overpopulated areas.”241 Such housing schemes accelerated “modernization” policies, which simultaneously encouraged preservation initiatives.242 Thus, the “clearing up” of the Raffles

237 Allais, 178. 238 Allais, 178. 239 United Nations Department of Public Information, Helping Southeast Asia to Help Itself, 42. 240 United Nations Department of Public Information, 42. 241 United Nations Department of Public Information, 42. 242 United Nations, ‘Town Planning in Singapore’, n.d., S-0175-1799-04, SING (4-1), UN Archives.

68 Museum’s clustered displays echoed initiatives on an urban scale: the late colonial moment tidied up both cramped museum displays and dwellings.

The emerging concept of preservation occurred across the Malay world, and the modernization of the Raffles Museum was mirrored in national museums to-be in Brunei,

Malaysia, and Indonesia. While similar undertakings of preservation took place in the region’s various nations, “preservation” also offered a deepening of the specificity of each nation.

Following the final separation of Singapore and Malaysia in 1965, the Raffles Museum, now known as the National Museum, became a tool to measure Singapore against other nations. To underline Singapore’s advancement, the National Museum was depicted as an extraordinary institution “second to none in Malaysia.”243 While the national distinctiveness “thickened,”

Singapore was also absorbed by a new geographical notion: the island was in the process of becoming part of the region of Southeast Asia. By 1965, the Straits Times declared the National

Museum “the best in Southeast Asia,” a regional conception that was intimately tied to the UN and its TA network.244

As mentioned in Chapter One, Singapore had long been part of Malaya, a colonial administrative category that was imagined to be part of the peripheries of both India and China.

The island was part of “Hinterindien,” or “Further India,” the territory “in-between” two civilizations that was not quite the “Far East.”245 Such pre-war regional designations were abandoned in the aftermath of World War II when instead the notion of “Southeast Asia” solidified. The regional framework is conventionally attributed to the US military. The field of

Southeast Asian studies was also advanced in the US in the 1950s and 1960s. For instance,

243 The Straits Times, ‘Singapore’s museum second to none in Malaysia’, The Straits Times, 30 June 1965, 9. 244 The Straits Times, ‘Singapore’s museum second to none in Malaysia.’ 245 Donald K. Emmerson, ‘“Southeast Asia”: What’s in a Name?’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 15, no. 1 (March 1984): 4.

69 Yale’s Southeast Asian center was founded in 1947 with a grant from the Carnegie Foundation.

In 1950, the Ford Foundation granted $579,000 to Cornell University to establish a Southeast

Asian studies program.246 Finally, in 1960, the U.C. schools established a Southeast Asian center at Berkeley.247 Among the purposes of the programs was the aim to chart American influences in the region and trace the impact of TA schemes and UN efforts.248

The new region was part of a Cold War landscape in which the US government had declared explicit interests. For instance, in 1961, US President John F. Kennedy announced in a news conference held in the State Department Auditorium, “it is quite obvious that if the

Communists were able to move in and dominate [Laos], it would endanger the security (…) and the peace of all of Southeast Asia.”249 However, the regional term of Southeast Asia was not purely American: it was appropriated and developed by the region’s countries. In 1967, the regional cooperation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was established.250 The founding of the association demonstrates that the five member-countries – Indonesia, Singapore,

Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines – to some degree accepted the notion of Southeast Asia as a “self.”

Indeed, as in the case of “Malaya,” the notion of Southeast Asia as a region and a field of study was not solely an American enterprise: Southeast Asia was neither a purely foreign nor local concept. The traffic of knowledge and expertise was more than a one-way flow and

246 Inderjeet Parmar, Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (Columbia University Press, 2012), 142. 247 Robert Van Neil, ‘Southeast Asian Studies in the U.S.A.’, Journal of Southeast Asian History 5, no. 1 (March 1964): 188. 248 Van Neil, ‘Southeast Asian Studies in the U.S.A.,’ 189. 249 J. F. Kennedy, ‘News Conference 8’ (State Department Auditorium Washington, D. C., 23 March 1961), https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-press-conferences/news-conference-8. Accessed May 11, 2019. 250 ASEAN, ‘The Asean Declaration (Bangkok Declaration) Bangkok, 8 August 1967,’ https://asean.org/the-asean- declaration-bangkok-declaration-bangkok-8-august-1967/. Accessed May 11, 2019.

70 imposition of power. The region that became known as Southeast Asia actively participated in the development of both the regional concept and the disciplinary boundaries. The scholarly community counted academics hailing from across the British Commonwealth world, European research centers, and the newly independent Southeast Asian nations.

Embedded in the name of Southeast Asia were orientalist fantasies as well as nationalist searches for distinctiveness.251 Concerned with rendering different the region from China, India, and the West, certain American scholars believed the region to possess a “continues and underlying autonomy” that survived the “coming of Hindu-Buddhism, of Islam, and early

Europeans.” 252 Such conceptual framework of Southeast Asia insisted on a region capable of

“self-cultivation, self-determination, self-assurance, self-reliance, self-strengthening, self- discipline” and “self-improvement, and self-development.”253 The bolstering of a regional “self” was tied with the essentialist idea of the region as “old,” “ancient,” and “authentic,” a scholarly pursuit of an echt region that fueled nationalist narratives.

International museum practices preserved the Raffles Museum’s colonial notions of nature and culture in the guise of modernization. The museum’s possessions represented a true

Malaya that could be safeguarded only inside the museum. The new attention to pedagogy and curatorial work resulted in displays that carefully crafted a supposed exterior world: the specimens represented the island. While the museum’s collection of nature and culture were believed to reflect a specific reality, this “real” was a fictional product of the museum’s arbitrary and accidentally assembled collection of artifacts. UNESCO experts enabled the continuation of

251 John R. W. Smail, ‘On the Possibility of an Autonomous History of Modern Southeast Asia’. Journal of Southeast Asian History 2, no. 2 (1961): 74. 252 Smail, 101. 253 Craig J. Reynolds, ‘Self-Cultivation and Self-Determination in Postcolonial Southeast Asia’, in Southeast Asian Studies: Reorientations, The Frank H. Golay Memorial Lectures 2 and 3 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 9.

71 colonial conceptions of Malaya’s nature and culture, but inserted the island into a new geographic framework, thus obscuring the colonial legacy. In the museum, Singapore’s nature and culture was British Malayan, Malayan, and Southeast Asian and constantly molded and remolded by colonial officers, nationalists, and international experts.

72 Conclusion

In the process of colonizing British Malaya, British officers contributed significantly to the synthetic creation of a Malayan nature. The British quest for resources and revenue drove a natural history collection impulse, which lay the foundation for institutions such as the Raffles

Museum. The museum collected “nature” in its broadest sense, encompassing artifacts from natural sciences as well as disciplines such as anthropology and archaeology. The institution’s origins in trade is reflected for instance in the directorship of James Collins who tied the museum to larger commercial infrastructures of economic botany such as international exhibitions.

To the colonial administration, the assembled exhibits and specimens rendered visible, manageable, and readable what was governed: the collections represented the exterior reality of the colonized territory as imagined by colonial officers. With taxidermy and taxonomy, the museum claimed to represent a “real” outside the museum walls. However, despite its encyclopedic aspirations and commercial importance, the Raffles Museum remained short of staff and funds. For the most part, the collections expanded only as a result of individual curators’ hobbies, private donations, and sporadic expeditions.

The creation of a distinct, specific Malayan culture also emerged from the question of how to read and govern people: the invention of culture allowed for the colonial government to codify peoples. This turn to culture in the early twentieth-century was reflected in the practices of the Raffles Museum. The institution extracted anthropological and archaeological artifacts from its natural history collections and transferred them into the realm of culture. The museum dedicated galleries to archaeology; divided the curator position into one of zoology and one of anthropology; and documented local arts.

73 Simultaneous to the shift from nature to culture, the Raffles Museum also shifted ownership: from having reflected a colonial Malaya to the colonizer, the museum became a space where a nationalist Malaya could be visualized to the colonized. The colonial, administrative category of “Malaya” was instrumental to the nationalist quest for self- determination. The creation of a “Malayan” culture entered the political scene with the founding of the Ministry of Culture in 1959 under the People’s Action Party. The Raffles Museum was cemented as “culture” when it came under the administration of the new Ministry of Culture.

With exhibitions such as the Indian Art Exhibition, the museum became a site where a nationalist

“Malayan” culture was forged. The institution contributed to the idea of a monolithic Malaya that consisted of both the Malay peninsula and Singapore: most of the museum’s objects and specimen were extracted from the peninsula, and the ancient objects were proof of the cultural connection. Thus, nationalist, self-determination was fueled by colonial orientalism. In the museum, the synthetic categories of “Malayan” and “British” were reinforced by one another, allowing for colonial definitions of culture to spill into national ones.

The museum collection strengthened the idea of a distinctive territory, a nature and culture that the museum not only created but also protected in the wake of late colonial

“modernization” schemes. As the fictional Malaya disappeared outside the museum, it was conserved inside its walls. Post-war directors Michael Tweedie and Carl Alexander Gibson-Hill were preoccupied not with commerce and industrial collaborations but with the preservation of what they perceived as an “authentic” Malaya. Their directorship announced a shift from taxonomy to natural and cultural conservation, a shift that overlapped with nationalist searches for the nation’s cultural contents.

74 With the arrival of international preservation practices, the “truth” of the collection – the objects representing a nature and culture outside the museum walls – was reinforced again. In the museum, visitors and officers could behold the exotic and picturesque island. Taxidermy transformed a fictional nature into the “real,” manipulating and mimicking a wild nature that only inside the museum could be safeguarded.

The museum saw itself as performing essential services to save the collections.

Paradoxically, what threatened to render extinct colonial imaginations was colonialism itself and modernity – two sides of the same coin. Colonial officers were both the creators of Malaya’s nature and culture and the agents of its extinction. Internationalist, UNESCO museum practices only fortified the contradictory enterprises of the colonial museum as ones that created, destroyed, and preserved Malaya’s nature and culture. The museum’s preservation endeavors were a response to the disappearance of a world that it itself generated and dismantled.

The institutional history of the Raffles Museum reveals that colonial imaginaries did not end with the advent of independence. Indeed, the museum allowed for fluidity between the colonial and the national and also blurred the lines between what constituted the categories of

“British,” “Malayan,” and “Singaporean.” In the late colonial moment, the Raffles Museum accommodated and facilitated a shift from nature to culture, from taxonomy to preservation, and from other to self. The museum embodied the imaginaries its museum staff had created. It became the only site where a pure Malayan nature and culture could flourish – whether in the hands of colonial amateur scientists, nationalist politicians, or international museum experts.

What eventually became Singapore’s national culture was initially Malayan, colonial, and natural.

75 Bibliography

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81 United Nations. ‘Town Planning in Singapore’, n.d. S-0175-1799-04, SING (4-1). UN Archives. ———. ‘United Nations Technical Assistance Mission in Singapore’, n.d. S-0175-1798-01, TE 322/5 SING. UN Archives. ———. ‘United Nations Technical Assistance Mission in Singapore’, n.d. S-0175-1798-01, TE 322/1 SING. UN Archives.

82 Figures

Fig. 1 The Raffles Museum, 1938-39. Courtesy of the National Museum of Singapore, National Heritage Board, Singapore.

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Fig. 2 Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew giving his opening speech at the Indian Art Exhibition at the Raffles Museum with the Indian High Commissioner, Mr Banerji, and Museum Director, Carl Alexander Gibson-Hill, 1959. Courtesy of the Ministry of Information and the Arts, Singapore.

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Fig. 3 Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew at the Indian Art Exhibition at the Raffles Museum, 1959. Courtesy of the Ministry of Information and the Arts, Singapore.

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Fig. 4 Principal exports of Singapore 1938 and 1947. Singapore Annual Report 1947, Government Printing Office of Singapore.

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Fig. 5 View of the Raffle Museum and YMCA, 1950s. Courtesy of the National Museum of Singapore, National Heritage Board, Singapore.

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Fig. 6 Fish room in the Raffles Museum, 1931. Courtesy of the National Museum of Singapore, National Heritage Board, Singapore.

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Fig. 7 Visitors in the Raffles Museum, 1950s. Courtesy of the National Museum of Singapore, National Heritage Board, Singapore.

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Fig. 8 Ethnographic display in the Raffles Museum, 1931. Courtesy of the National Museum of Singapore, National Heritage Board, Singapore.

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Fig. 9 Carl Alexander Gibson-Hill. Drawing of flying foxes. Report of the Raffles Museum and Library for the Year 1956.

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Fig. 10 Carl Alexander Gibson-Hill. Photograph of “Chinese festival.” In Singapore Annual Report 1952, Government Printing Office of Singapore.

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Fig. 11 Carl Alexander Gibson-Hill. Photograph of Teluk Ayer Street. In Singapore Annual Report 1949, Government Printing Office of Singapore.

Fig. 12 Carl Alexander Gibson-Hill. Photograph of “modern dwellings” in Tiong Bahru. In Singapore Annual Report 1949, Government Printing Office of Singapore.

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Fig. 13 The Raffles Museum’s display of Malay hats and dish covers accompanied by photographs of craftmanship technique. Report of the Raffles Museum and Library for the Year 1951.

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Fig. 14 Press photograph of Museum Director Michael Tweedie and Dr A. N. J. Van der Hoop. In the Singapore Standard, November 8, 1956.

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Fig. 15 Part of list of insecticides in The Raffles Museum Singapore (1957) by Dr A. N. J. Van der Hoop.

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