Who has heard of the Temenggong?
- Karien van Ditzhuijzen
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
We have a running joke in my family. Whenever I say the word Temenggong, my kids will yell bingo, and laugh. It has been proposed that I need to pay a fine every time I utter the word. They would become very rich if we’d implement that rule, as I have to admit, I have a mild Temenggong obsession. Unfortunately outside my family, or those with an interest in Singapore history, it seems few people have heard of the Temenggongs. Have you?
If you are on this website, you have heard at least one reference to them: the pinapple plantations that once covered Mount Faber, and that we named our company after, were owned by none other than the Temenggong of Singapore!
Initially my knowledge of the Temenggong was limited, I knew he was a Malay royal under the Sultan, and that as the local chieftain was the de facto ruler of the Malay in Singapore. During my training as a Kampong Gelam docent for FOM, the focus was on Sultan Hussain and his descendants, who lived in the Kampong Gelam Istana. It wasn’t until I started to research my new neighbourhood of Telok Blangah that I started to appreciate this influential family, and how instrumental the Temenggongs were in the development of Singapore.
As anyone who knows me can testify, once I get started on the subject of the Temenggong you better get comfortable. But don’t worry, for the sake of this blog post I will keep it brief. Well, no guarantees, just a promise I will try.
Let’s start at the beginning: what does the word mean? Temenggong is a Malay royal role and title, and in the old Malay Maritime Empire they ruled under the Sultan, who was the head of state. Being in charge of the port and nautical trade, the Temenggongs typically a had a powerful position. Around the time the British wanted to settle in Singapore it was ruled by Temenggong Abdul Raman, who had moved here only a few years earlier after a disagreement about the succession of the throne. The British smelled an opportunity when Abdul Raman suggested to bring in his preferred candidate, Tengku Hussain, and make him Sultan, thereby opposing his half-brother who had been installed as Sultan in the Riau Islands and was supported by the Dutch, the British rivals in the region. The British took over the Temenggong's village near the Singapore river and gave him land in Telok Blangah, the bay at the mouth of the old Singapore Strait that had for a long time been inhabited by Malay traders, pirates, and the Orang Laut or sea nomads. He build his Istana near where Harbourfront MRT station is now, and soon kampongs with the Temenggong's followers sprung up around Telok Blangah. Abdul Raman was a smart man who managed to make good money from trade, and the British soon realised their mistake in giving this prime land away.
In 1824 a second treaty was signed, confoundingly called the ‘Treaty of Friendship and Alliance’ that stripped Sultan Hussain of his sovereignty and the Temenggong and his men of their right to run the harbour. Telok Blangah yet again became rife with pirates, rendering it unsafe for the British to develop their New Harbour there.
But the Temenggongs had many tricks up their sleeves. After Abdul Raman’s death his son Daeng Ibrahim took over, who figured ‘if you can’t beat them, join them.’ He cleared Telok Blangah bay of mangroves and pirates, and leased much of the land back to the British. A smart and shrewd man, Daeng Ibrahim was a successful trader and businessman, and when he realised the British were there to stay in Singapore he moved his attention to mainland Johor where he worked together with local Chinese and started many gambier and pepper plantations. He became very rich, amongst others by enforcing a monopoly in gutta percha, a resin found in the jungles of Singapore and Johor that was used for medical equipment and to insulate underseas telegraph lines.
In 1855 Daeng Ibrahim was granted sovereignty of Johor by the British, to the dismay of Sultan Ali, son of the late Sultan Hussain, who felt this should have been rightfully his.
After Daeng Ibrahim’s death in 1862 his son Abu Bakar took over as Temenggong. Having grown up in the British era, Abu Bakar was well educated and knew how to work with the British. Amongst his European friends he used the name Albert Baker, and he visited London several times where he became personal friends with Queen Victoria. From 1868 onwards he started to call himself Maharaja of Johor – even in those days, few people had heard of a Temenggong. In 1886 Queen Victoria granted Abu Bakar’s wish to carry the title Sultan of Johor. It was a dream come true for the family, that still carries this title as rulers of Johor, but unfortunately it made Abu Bakar the last of the Temenggongs of Singapore.
Abu Bakar was quite possibly the richest man on earth in his time. He is a figure from a fairy tale, about whom many stories can be told. He was born in his father’s palace in Telok Blangah, the Istana Lama, but that was soon too small for him. As a Muslim, he had four wives, and he had as many palaces, two of which exist to this day.
The Istana Besar is, like the name suggests, the largest and is located in Johor. I plan to visit it next month, and will definitely tell you more about it then.
The largest in Singapore was called Istana Tyersall. It was built for his third wife, the Sultana Fatimah, or Wong Ah Gew, a woman of Chinese descent whose father was an important business partner of Abu Bakar. Unfortunately she never lived to see its completion in 1892. The house burned down in 1905 and its remnants were demolished in the late 20th century. The estate is now covered in thick jungle but still owned by the Johor royal family. It borders the Singapore Botanic gardens, unknown and unseen by many that pass by it on a daily basis. The Tyersall Estate was the inspiration for the Crazy Rich Asians books where the rich Straits Chinese Young family owns a suspiciously similar estate in the same location.
The Tyersall jungle still houses a surprise: hidden inside is the dilapidated Istana Woodneuk, the palace built by Abu Bakar for his 4th wife Khadijah. She was Abu Bakar's fourth and last wife, of Circassian heritage, that he married in 1893 during a state visit to the Ottoman Empire. Those who dare can venture and explore, unfortunately this is not the original building from Abu Bakar’s time but one from 1935, yet still very much worth the dirty feet (and yes, I can show you the way).
The last of Abu Bakar’s palaces was Istana Bidadari in Serangoon, which he built for his second wife, Sultana Zubaidah, whose birth name was Cecilia Catherina Lange and had a Danish father. She was the only wife that bore him a son, who succeeded his father as Sultan Ibrahim after his death.
On the mainland Abu Bakar is revered and remembered as the founder and father of modern Johor, yet in his birthplace of Telok Blanga little reminds of him. His grandfather’s palace, Istana Lama, was demolished in the 1950s, the condominium Harbourlights now stands in its place. What remains is the old balai, or meeting hall, which has been turned into Daeng Ibrahim Mosque and the adjoining royal cemetery. The mausoleum hold the graves of Temenggong Abdul Raman, Daeng Ibrahim and many other royal relatives. Abu Bakar contracted pneumonia in London in 1895 and died there. His body was brought back to Johor and is buried there in the Mahmoodiah Royal Mausoleum in Johor Bahru.
Did I get you excited to about the Temenggongs of Telok Blangah?
Join one of my Temenggong walking tours where we look for remnants of the royal family around the neighbourhood!
(old images shown here are taken from the National Archives of Singapore online, the NLB website and Roots.sg. Modern photos all by author)
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