Rigel Kent

An account detailing the discovery of Captain Yap's death by his wife can be found in The Straits Times (20 April 1885, p. 3): . . . at midnight between the 14th and 15th March, his wife visited him at his bedside and gave him some food and then retired to bed for the night. Between 5 and 6 o'clock, not seeing the Capitan as usual going about, she went to waken him, and found him dead, cut off almost in the prime of life at the age of 48 . . . The report was consistent with the calendrical data written on the photo housed in the Sin Sze Si Ya Temple. We were told by the same newspaper clip that Captain Yap was honored with two series of five-gun salute (10 o'clock, fired from the Joss House, and 7 o'clock the next morning when the body was placed in the coffin. Military salute given to Yap Ah Loy, Bendahara of Pahang, Sultan of...

Sunday morning, 9 February 1879 . A 45-year-old was received at the jetty by a distinguished gathering of officials from the Protected Native States. The names of the bigshots were Hugh Low, the Resident of Perak; William Maxwell, the Assistant Resident of Larut; and Bloomfield Douglas, the Resident of Selangor. They had assembled to bid farewell to their boss as he departed for England. With a 17-gun military salute, fired from the fort, the reign of Sir William C. F. Robinson was officially brought to an end. While the statement released to the press declared that he was taking an eight-month leave, there were however widespread rumours 1 suggesting Robinson would not be returning to Singapore. Two days earlier, on Friday, the Lieutenant Governor of Penang, Colonel Archibald E. H. Anson, departed Penang aboard the steamer Geelong , bound for Singapore. His new assignment was to temporarily assume the duties of Robinson. Unfort...

The first three rulers of Rembau were all imported from Pagar Ruyung. The real names of these Minangkabau princes are likely lost but we were told that they are to be addressed as Raja Melewar (d. 1795) Raja Hitam (d. 1808) Raja Lenggang (d. 1824) The reason why the importation of Sumatran princes was paused or halted (lenggang) after 1824 remains unclear. E. Sadka suggests that court politics were responsible for bringing this tradition to an end and she wrote (1960): . . . the inevitable happened; there were royal efforts to establish a dynasty in Negri Sembilan and minor dynasties in Rembau and Jelebu. These attempts involved the aspiring Yamtuans in endless conflicts with the territorial chiefs . . . Raja Melewar was said to have been enpatriarched (dipertuan) at Penajis during the reign of Mahmud III (r. 1770 – 1811). His tomb remains visible ...

The foundation of much of the Federal Highway as we know today (from the old fort of Raja Mahadi to present-day Pantai Valley) is the result of many years (1875 - 1879) of British administrative planning and series of contractual works undertaken by Captain Yap Ah Loy and his Hakka laborers. On a August Monday afternoon in 1875, the 25-year-old Swettenham arrived at the Klang Residency. There, he found J. G. Davidson working alone, aided by a few assistants, deeply absorbed in surveying and marking out the outline of the Damansara-Kuala Lumpur road. Swenttenham had naturally expected the presence of both Tunku Kudin and Syed Zin at this important moment in Selangor. And was disappointed when he found they were not there. Fast forward 2,500 days to 8 May 1882, we cut the scene to 1 Savile Row, London. Here, in an evening meetin...