Singapore Mutiny: A Colonial Couple’s Stirring Account of Combat and Survival in the 1915 Singapore Mutiny Paperback – March 7, 2015

What did you do in the War, Daddy? Well, there wasn’t too much of a First World War in Singapore compared to the Second, but one family’s memories – Daddy’s & Mummy’s - have just been published by Monsoon Books to mark the centenary of the Singapore Mutiny.Barbara Brown was just three in February 1915, old enough to be aware of anxiety amongst adults around her, and of hasty journeys to board a ship in Singapore Roads which then went nowhere. Her parents, Edwin (EAB) and Mary (MEB) had the foresight to write an account of those times for her, and EAB describes in an accompanying letter how he is finishing transcribing their notes whilst sitting in the deck house of a cargo ship returning home nearly 10 years later.As a then-Captain in the Singapore Volunteers it fell to EAB to play an important part in the quelling of this Mutiny. He describes events in a compelling way, to the point, and with some hints of humour in what were clearly worrying times. Whereas his story is one of almost continuous military activity, that of his wife Mary is of days of boredom punctuated by periods of excitement. Both give homely details of colleagues and friends, and of their reactions to the unfolding drama.In one of 3 forewords to this first publication, Barbara’s daughter Celia Ferguson tells the extraordinary later history of this handwritten account, of its presumed loss after the Fall of Singapore and subsequent re-appearance. She also usefully places this event in the history of the Brown family in Singapore in the first half of the 20th Century, a history sadly far more marred by the Second World War. In particular, Mary, a refugee afloat in 1915, was again aboard ship, the ill-fated Vyner Brooke, in 1942, and died in Muntok in January 1945.While both the Browns’ accounts are basically restricted to their own memories of the events, the other two forewords, by Prof Brian P Farley and Nigel Barley, provide much useful military and political background to this story and its aftermath. Full marks must go to the publisher Phil Tatham for gathering all this information into one most readable volume.EAB later published Indiscreet Memories, memoirs of his first five years in Singapore, which was republished by Monsoon Books in 2007. In his foreword to that volume he fears that ‘it will be of interest to no one but my own immediate relations’. He need not have feared, for now the true value of such accounts in painting a full picture of life beside the formal histories is being appreciated by a wide audience.

An interesting read - very much a product of it's time re the language used and the thinking behind actions taken.

I heard stories of this Indian mutiny from my Grandfather who was a Sergeant-Major with the British Army in Singapore at the time (the German prisoners saved his life). My Grandmother, father and aunt were evacuated to the Russian ship like Mrs Brown. This is a wonderful and vivid personal account of a little known incident in Singapore history.