Singapore from the sea, June 1823: notes on a recently discovered sketch attributed to Lt. Philip Jackson
H.F. Pearson, writing in 1953, presents a detailed analysis of a previously unknown pencil sketch of Singapore dated June 5, 1823, attributed to Lt. Philip Jackson, the settlement’s Assistant Engineer. The article uses this drawing—discovered in a private collection descended from Raffles’s nephew—as a primary source to reconstruct the physical appearance of the town at the moment of Raffles’s final departure and to assess how far his ambitious rebuilding programme had actually progressed.
Summary
The sketch was found among Raffles’s papers in the collection of Mrs. J.H. Drake (née Raffles-Flint), a direct descendant of William Charles Raffles Flint, to whom Raffles’s personal effects passed after the deaths of his sister Maryanne and his widow Lady Sophia. Professor C. Northcote Parkinson identified the drawing during a brief examination of the collection in 1951 and secured permission for its publication. The sketch shows the town east of the Singapore River viewed from the sea, and its date—four days before Raffles’s embarkation for Bencoolen—makes it the earliest known visual record of the settlement. A pencilled note on the drawing indicates that a second, more accurate version was prepared specifically for Raffles, but that fair copy was lost when the ship Fame sank with all of Raffles’s collections and manuscripts aboard; the rough preliminary sketch survived because Jackson, having little further use for it, sent it to Raffles in Bencoolen in response to a request in February 1824 (pp. 43–45).
Pearson’s central historical problem is whether Raffles’s sweeping demolition and reconstruction orders, issued between October 1822 and June 1823, were in fact carried out. Raffles had returned to Singapore deeply dissatisfied with the way Colonel Farquhar had allowed the town to develop, particularly the failure to reserve the entire Cantonment Plain for military and government use as he had instructed in 1819. His October 29, 1822 proclamation warned European merchants against further building on the reserved ground, and the subsequent months saw a stream of peremptory orders to pull down structures and relocate populations. Yet the sketch, drawn in June 1823, appears to show a town that had not been as thoroughly cleared as Raffles’s correspondence implies. Pearson argues that the drawing supports Buckley’s later observation that some condemned houses on the north side of the river were allowed to remain, and that the relieving Resident John Crawfurd, who was opposed to many of Raffles’s schemes, likely permitted a degree of continuity (pp. 47–48).
The bulk of the article is devoted to identifying individual buildings and features in the sketch using scattered references in contemporary letters held in the East India Company’s records at the Raffles Museum. Pearson works through the drawing systematically—the Hill, Mount Sophia, the right and left banks of the river, the area between the river mouth and High Street, and the area north-east of High Street—cross-referencing each identification with documentary evidence. He acknowledges that the original maps, plans, and leases prepared between 1819 and 1823 have all been lost (records eaten by rats, according to a 1827 diary entry), forcing reliance on ambiguous and incomplete letter references, so that all identifications remain necessarily tentative (p. 48).
Key Findings
- The sketch is dated June 5, 1823, four days before Raffles’s final departure from Singapore aboard the chartered brig Hero of Malown; the garrison order specified a 17-gun salute on his quitting the beach (pp. 43–44).
- Raffles’s bungalow on the Hill was 100 feet front by 50 feet deep and was completed in a fortnight in January 1823; it subsequently served as Government House until 1858–59 (pp. 48–49).
- The Temenggong’s compound between High Street and the coconut palms contained 79 houses and huts with a population of 607, according to the Temenggong’s own estimate recorded in a letter of March 15, 1823; Raffles ordered the community moved to Telok Belangah on March 14, 1823 (p. 52).
- Captain Flint’s house on the south side of the Singapore River, opposite Ferry Point, was rented by Raffles at 150 dollars per month during his 1822–23 stay (p. 51).
- The police station and jail stood on the sea-face at the mouth of the river; a February 10, 1827 report noted that the building required repairs due to constant washing by the sea at high water, and that strong rooms underneath were suitable for prisoners (p. 53).
- Lt. Jackson, the artist, was living in the Station Mess with other officers at the time of the sketch, as shown by an application for allowances dated May 19, 1823 (p. 55).
Conclusion
Pearson’s definitive takeaway is that the sketch provides crucial visual evidence that Raffles’s grandiose rebuilding scheme was only partially executed before his departure. The drawing, made by the very engineer responsible for carrying out the orders, shows a settlement that retained much of its earlier, less orderly character—confirming that the wholesale demolition Raffles’s correspondence implies did not in fact occur to the extent he intended, and that the town’s subsequent development under Crawfurd proceeded from a more mixed starting point than Raffles’s letters suggest.
Context
- The primary archival source is the East India Company’s manuscript records (Singapore series) in the Archives, Raffles Museum, Singapore, particularly the correspondence of 1822–23 between Raffles, Farquhar, Hull, Bernard, and Jackson.
- The article contributes to the visual and material history of early Singapore by providing the first detailed building-by-building interpretation of the earliest known sketch of the settlement, filling a gap left by the total loss of the original survey plans and leases of the 1819–1823 period.