Colony of Singapore

A trading post founded on a calculation about geography, which became the empire's most important Asian base and then lost it in ten weeks. Stamford Raffles established the settlement in 1819 at the narrowest point of the straits, and its free port drew Chinese, Malay, Indian, Arab and European traders until it handled much of the trade of Southeast Asia. It was governed as part of the Straits Settlements with Penang and Malacca, and Chinese immigration made the island's population majority Chinese, which is the fact that later made union with Malaya impossible. Britain built a naval base in the 1920s and 1930s presented as impregnable; Japanese forces came down the peninsula by bicycle and took the island in February 1942, with over eighty thousand troops surrendering in the largest capitulation in British military history. The Sook Ching massacre followed. The fall destroyed imperial prestige across Asia and is often taken as the moment British rule in the region became untenable. Self-government came in 1959. The colony merged into Malaysia in 1963 and was expelled two years later. The island covers about 700 square kilometres and had no natural resources beyond its position. Raffles negotiated the original agreement with a claimant to the Johor sultanate whose title was itself disputed. The population grew from a few thousand in 1819 to over half a million by 1930. Rubber and tin from the peninsula were traded and processed here. The Straits Settlements were governed from India until 1867, when they became a Crown colony in their own right.

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