Article

William George Stirling

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

William George Stirling

Early Life and Education

William George Stirling was born at Sysonby House, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, on 25 August 1887, the son of Gilbert Stirling, a retired major in the Royal Horse Guards, and Norah, the Honourable Norah Josephine Harcourt Westenra, daughter of Henry Westenra, 3rd Baron Rossmore. [1, p. 136] He attended Warren Hill School in Eastbourne before entering Harrow School in 1901, where he remained until 1905. [1, p. 136] During his school years, Stirling developed a fascination with the Far East; at the age of 16 he joined the Japan Society in London, and by 1905 had acquired pieces of Japanese art, some of which he lent to a school exhibition. [1, p. 136]

Civil Service Career in Malaya

Stirling arrived in Malaya in January 1907, after a period in Hong Kong, and worked briefly on a rubber estate before joining the Malayan Civil Service in 1909. [1, p. 136] His first posting was with the Monopolies and Customs Services Department, where his duties included dealing with the opium trade. [1, p. 136] In 1915 he joined the Chinese Protectorate in Melaka, and from 1921 to 1931 served as Assistant Protector of Chinese in Singapore. [1, p. 136] The Protectorate, established in 1877, was responsible for regulating Chinese immigration, managing abuses of Chinese labour, and suppressing Chinese secret societies, which had become involved in smuggling, extortion, opium trafficking, gambling, prostitution, and the criminal exploitation of immigrant labour. [1, p. 136]

The dangers of this work were not merely theoretical. On 15 December 1926, a Chinese tin miner, dissatisfied with Stirling’s advice on a domestic matter, stabbed him in the thigh during an interview; the man then stabbed his wife and turned the weapon on himself. Stirling and the miner were not seriously hurt, but the woman’s condition was critical. [1, p. 136]

In 1916 Stirling married Chan Chee Man Wan, the daughter of a prominent merchant in Canton, who was twelve years his junior; they had one daughter, Mary, born in 1918. [1, p. 136]

Literary and Artistic Output

Throughout his Malayan career, Stirling wrote and illustrated several books. Shadows in the Malay Peninsula appeared in 1910, followed by Opium Smoking among the Chinese, published by the Times of Malaya Press in 1913, which described the manufacture of opium, the equipment and techniques of smoking, the physical and moral effects of addiction, and the methods employed by smugglers, including drugs concealed in false-bottomed containers, hollowed-out books, shoe-heels, and stuffed fowls. [1, pp. 136–137] In 1914 he published John Chinaman, a volume of silhouette drawings depicting Chinese people in various roles, issued simultaneously in Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Yokohama. [1, p. 137] A later volume, Shadows on a Malayan Screen (1926), re-used images from his earlier works. [1, p. 138]

Around 1918, Lotus Library Publications issued a limited edition of 1,000 copies of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, using Edward FitzGerald’s first edition text, printed by Fraser & Neave in Singapore. [1, p. 138] The illustrations, bearing the monogram W.G.S., reflect a Malayan background in which Omar’s wine is replaced by opium and his tavern by the opium den. [1, p. 138] Stirling also collaborated with A.W. Hamilton, a member of the Malayan police, on a Malay translation of the Rubaiyat (c. 1932) and on Hamilton’s Malayan Nursery Rhymes (1923) and Malay Sonnets (1932). [1, p. 139] He contributed a preface, translations of the Hung Ritual, and the bulk of the illustrations to volume one of J.S.M. Ward’s The Hung Society, or the Society of Heaven and Earth (London, 1925–6). [1, p. 139]

Post-Retirement Career and Legacy

Stirling retired from the civil service in 1932 and arrived at Southampton on 15 January 1933 aboard the Dempo. [1, p. 140] He returned to his birthplace, Sysonby Lodge, where his mother was still living; she died in September 1934. [1, p. 140] While on holiday in Ostend, Belgium, he resolved to take up sculpture, attending classes at the London Polytechnic. [1, p. 140] In 1935 he exhibited his first head at the Royal Academy, and two years later showed both sculptures and drawings at the Wertheim Gallery, Burlington Gardens. [1, p. 141]

From around 1934 he also collaborated with Dr Edmund Locard, director of the Technical Police Laboratory in Lyons, on the detection of forged documents and counterfeit notes. [1, p. 141] Stirling invented an optical instrument called the Synchrisiscope, or “synchronised microscope,” which may have been used for comparing documents or fingerprints. [1, p. 141] In a letter to The Times (23 August 1934), he referred to studies carried out in 1929–30 on the fingerprints of Chinese nationals, confirming the predominance of the whorl pattern. [1, p. 141]

Stirling died at St Charles Hospital, Kensington, London, on 11 October 1951. [1, p. 141] His wife, Chan Stirling, survived him by some 16 years, dying in Hong Kong in 1977. [1, p. 141] His collection of Chinese secret society artefacts, amassed during his Protectorate service, is housed in the National Museum of Singapore and was the subject of Irene Lim’s monograph Secret Societies in Singapore: Featuring the William Stirling Collection (1999). [1, p. 139] In 1956 Singapore named a road in the Queenstown area after him. [1, p. 141]

Research and Documentation

Stirling’s life was recorded by R. Forrest in a 2018 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, excerpted from a longer paper on Stirling’s Rubaiyat illustrations. [1, p. 135] The account draws on census records, ship manifests, electoral rolls, probate records, and contemporary press reports from The Scotsman, The Times, and The Studio, as well as Stirling’s own publications. [1, pp. 135–141] Stirling himself contributed six articles to the journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society between 1921 and 1926, covering topics including contraband, Chinese exorcists, divining blocks, the Red and White Flag Societies, a Chinese wedding in the reform style, and the coffin-breakers. [1, p. 138]

MBRAS Sources

Bibliography

References

  1. R. Forrest (2018). William George Stirling (1887–1951): civil servant and artist JMBRAS 91(2): 135–141. Read on JSTOR