1314
Early photography in the British Straits Settlements
was concentrated around Singapore the prosperous
port built in 1819 by the English East India Company.
Munshi Abdullah in his 1849 narrative Hikayat Abdullah
reports seeing a daguerreotype view of the city—possi-
bly as early as 1841—made by a doctor aboard a visiting
American warship. The fi rst resident photographer in the
region was the undistinguished French portrait painter
Gaston Dutronquoy (c.1800–c.1857) who set up his
‘London Hotel’ in Singapore in March 1839, installed
a photography studio and in December 1843 advertised
his services as ‘complete master of the newly invented
and late imported Daguerreotype’ in the Singapore Free
Press. His practise may have continued till 1849 but may
also have been an occasional activity. French customs
expert Jules Itier (1802–1877) did succeed in making
daguerreotypes in Asia between 1843–1846 while on
a business mission to China. Some plates survive in-
cluding portraits and views from Singapore, Borneo,
and Manila made in 1844–1845. Eliphalet Brown Jr.
(1816–1886) offi cial photographer on the U.S .Perry
Expedition to Japan, seems also likely to have made
plates in Singapore in 1853.
The fi rst generation of photographers in Asia were
itinerant and the few established studios lasted only
a few years; daguerreotypist H. Husband operated in
Singapore in1853 then C. Düben from Batavia who had
also visited Hong Kong, Shanghai, Macao and Manila,
offered superior improved portraits from 1854 until his
return to Batavia in 1857 and in May 1855 daguerreo-
typist L. Saurman also from Batavia, briefl y worked out
of the London Hotel. Calotype work popular in British
India, is unknown in the Straits and Manila.
In the fi rst decades most photographers in the Asia-
Pacifi c region were European but J. Newman based in
Singapore from 1856–57, advertised many refi nements
and “permanence” for the products of his American Pho-
tographic Rooms. He made a side trip to Malacca—the
fi rst photographer to work on the Malay mainland.
It seems likely that across the Asia-Pacifi c hundreds
even thousands of daguerreotypes were made even in
the 1840s. Englishman J.W. Newland for example,
travelled west to east from South America via Australia
to India and claimed to have made over 200 daguerreo-
types on the way. The number of extant daguerreotypes
however, is tiny. This paucity appears to apply equally
to the succeeding format of cased ambrotype portraits
and views.
By February 1858 Edward A. Edgerton was the
fi rst professional to introduce photographs on paper
to Singapore but moved on to work as an editor by
- He was followed by Thomas Hermitage and O.
Regnier offering the new wider range of products; both
views and portraits and places. The quest for images to
send back to Europe where they would be widely dis-
seminated redrawn as graphic illustrations propelled
the growth of the views trade. Stereographs led the way
and in 1860 Negretti and Zambra in London pioneered
publication of Southeast Asian stereographs. They took
the bold step of dispatching Swiss photographer Pierre
Rossier to China in 1859 and instructed him to go to
Manila where he made images of the Taal volcano. The
ease of making multiple prints facilitated the produc-
tion of albums and panoramas extolling the progress
of colonial cities. The earliest panorama in the Straits
region was a view of Singapore in ten parts made in
1863 by Sachtler and Co. The fi rm also made one of
the fi rst published albums; Views and Types of Singa-
pore. From 1864 the fi rm was run by August Sachtler
and Danish- born Kristen Feilberg (1839–1919) and
they built an extensive stock of views from across the
region including images from an expedition to Sarawak
in 1864. Feilberg, operating alone from 1867, had a feel
for picturesque views which he exhibited in the Paris
International Exhibition in 1867. J.M. Nauta, operated
in Penang and Singapore and had branches in Medan,
Achin and Sumatra between 1868–1888. He exhibited
Penang scenery at the Colonial and Indian exhibition
in London in 1886.These shows enabled the public to
see large format Asian images fi rst hand.
With improvements in exposure times portraiture
continued to grow and Royal courts in Asia were in often
enthusiastic and discerning users of photography ex-
changing images with their foreign counterparts. Views
trade work soon merged into reportage and Feilberg also
recorded events such as the Penang riots in 1867 and
later the visit of the British Duke of Edinburgh in 1869.
Other events particularly the increasingly fashionable
Royal tours by European and non-European rulers and
Vice Regal residents were a stimulus to photography
in the Asia-Pacifi c but more strongly it seems in Hong
Kong than in Singapore and Malaya.
The outstanding fi gure of the period for breadth of
coverage in the 1860s and model of the ‘travel photog-
rapher’ was Scot John Thomson who set up a studio in
Singapore in 1862 with his brother William but spent
most time travelling to Penang as well as Sumatra be-
fore departing in 1865 for Thailand and Cambodia. He
returned briefl y to Singapore in 1867 and published his
fi rst book Cambodian antiquities before settling in Hong
Kong where he illustrated a publication on the Visit of
the Duke of Edinburgh in 1869.
John Thomson used Indian assistants on his Straits
journeys in 1862 as the Chinese would not go near the
processing. Chinese (and a few Japanese) photogra-
phers however were among the earliest non-European
photographers at work in Southeast Asia mainly, Sun
Qua in 1867 and Yuk Lee a portrait painter from Canton,
who advertised briefl y in Singapore in 1861–1862, and
Koon Hin had a studio there in 1880. Hand-colouring