CHAPTER 41: REFLECTIONS ON SULTAN HUSSEIN IN SINGAPORE’S HISTORY

Sultan Hussein and his descendants have not fared well in Singapore’s history. The archived records document a dysfunctional relationship between them and the Straits Settlement government. Historians reviewing this record have virtually written Sultan Hussein and his family out of Singapore’s history. C. M. Turnbull, who authored a benchmark textbook on Singapore’s modern history, dismissed Tengku Hussein as “an uninspiring claimant to the Srivijaya-Temasek-Melaka-Johor legacy, faltering as it was in 1819 towards an ignominious demise, with the throne in dispute and battered by the Bugis, Dutch and British manoeuvring”…