HOTELS OF SINGAPORE
by João-Manuel Mimoso
"AN OUTWARD-BOUND mail-boat had come in that afternoon, and
the big dining-room of the hotel was more than half full of people
with a hundred pounds round-the-world tickets in their pockets.(......)
Henceforth they would be labelled as having passed through this and that
place, and so would be their luggage. They would cherish this distinction
of their persons, and preserve the gummed tickets on their portmanteaux
as documentary evidence, as the only permanent trace of their improving
enterprise." (Joseph Conrad, "Lord Jim")
| Above, left an early XX century label of the Adelphi. The extravagant
corners were easily ripped and the label was soon replaced by the version
at right which saw several editions. |
In the mid 1830s Singapore had some 16,000
citizens of which only 141 were Europeans. Not surprisingly there was only
one European hotel (the Royalist, which later became the Adelphi).
In 1839 another hotel opened, occupying an existing bungalow. This
was called Hotel de Londres and later became the Hotel de l'Europe (Europe
Hotel). It probably was Singapore's finest hotel for the next 60 years.
| Above left: early label of the Hotel de l'Europe showing the new building
erected in 1904. This label is particularly interesting in its similarity
with the Raffles labels. The label at right is more recent. |
Another bungalow, acquired by the Sarkies brothers, became the Raffles
Hotel in 1887. The original Raffles had only a few rooms and of it Rudyard
Kipling advised "feed at the Raffles and sleep at the Europe"...
But the Sarkies brothers soon took steps to remedy the shortcomings of
their hotel with a series of new constructions. The Main Building, which
is the Raffles' trademark to this day, was completed in 1899. Having lost
its leadership, the Europe soon followed with a total reconstruction in
a colonial grand hotel style that was completed in 1904. For the next 30
years both hotels would vie for the top place in Singapore, until the depression
called the competition off, as both proprietary companies filled for bankruptcy.
The Europe closed in 1934 and the building was demolished two years later;
the Raffles was saved in the nick of time by new investors. It was recently
restored to its 1915 glory and is possibly the most famous hotel
in Asia.
 |
The label at left shows the Raffles after the 1899 constructions. But
there were certainly earlier labels of the hotel. Joseph Conrad's Lord
Jim was written in 1899 and the action of the excerpt above takes place
in 1883 in the fictious Malabar House Hotel in an "Oriental port" said
to be Singapore. The hotel has been variously identified but probably is
as fictious as its name. Yet the text shows that in the XIX century luggage
labels were already a must in oriental hotels that catered for European
visitors... |
The labels below, with the English coat-of-arms, are from circa 1910 and
are rarely found in collections. Unusual for the time are the two differently
colored series of which the green is rarer.
Another Singaporean survivor is the Goodwood Park Hotel, opened in
1929 in the building of the old German Teutonia Club, originally built
in 1900 and confiscated and auctioned away to new owners during the First
World War.
Other noteworthy Singaporean hotels are the Seaview which, like the
Adelphi, was once controlled by the Sarkies, the Grand Hotel (1920), the
Railway Station Hotel (1932) and the Great Southern Hotel (1936)- I made
this list just to show how painfully uncompleted our collections are...
 |
The nearly forgotten Hotel de la Paix (left) lives forever in its label,
a small masterpiece by J.Paschal for Richter & Cº and one of the
finest labels ever to grace the luggage of travelers in Singapore. |
 |
Joao-Manuel Mimoso,
hotelsticker@netscape.net
March 28, 2002.
ANNOUNCEMENT: on April 20 I shall upload a new page with images
of labels I have for swapping.
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