Mary Turnbull

 

A Nation’s Historian

 

When UK-born historian C.M. Turnbull’s A History of Singapore, 1819-1975 was published in 1977, it quickly achieved recognition as an authoritative account of Singapore’s history. An earlier book she published in 1972 on the Straits Settlements, which Singapore had been a part of, was cited at the International Court of Justice hearing on Singapore’s and Malaysia’s sovereignty claim to the island of Pedra Branca.

 

Born in 1923, Constance Mary Turnbull grew up in Coventry, England, and was often sent away to stay with different relatives because her parents faced financial difficulties. She was still a student when World War II erupted. Despite the difficult circumstances, she obtained straight distinctions for her School Leaving Certificate and went on to pursue a degree in History at Bedford College, University of London.

After the war, it was difficult to find a job. One day, she simply walked into the office that handled public service appointments and asked, “Have you got something exciting a long way away where the sun shines?” At a staff’s suggestion of Kuala Lumpur, Turnbull exclaimed, “Well that sounds perfect!” It was only after she agreed to take up the job as an Administrative Officer in the Malayan Civil Service that Turnbull started to search for Kuala Lumpur on the world map.

Turnbull was among the few women to have served in the overseas colonial service. In fact, it was after her posting that the practice of dispatching women to serve in the Malayan Civil Service was cancelled. The chief secretary of the Federation of Malaya, Sir David Watherston, realised that it was culturally unacceptable for the locals to work under a woman. Turnbull, too, found it tough to work in the civil service where promotions were limited for women. Thus, when her civil service duties were completed in 1955, she left for an academic position at the University of Malaya in Singapore. Many of those whom she taught became civil servants here.

Turnbull was also present when Singapore was experiencing turbulent times. The late 1940s and 1950s were times of political and social upheaval—unemployment was high, living standards were low, and strikes and labour unrest were common. There was a growing Communist threat and the desire for independence from the British gained momentum. Under the Rendel Constitution, which came into effect in 1955, Singapore achieved self-governance in 1959. When Singapore became part of Malaysia in 1963, Turnbull was doing a brief stint at the university’s campus in Kuala Lumpur. She returned to teach at the Singapore campus in 1964, which had been renamed the University of Singapore. What she had witnessed inspired her to delve deeper into a study of Singapore’s history.

In 1971, Turnbull left the University of Singapore to head the History department at the University of Hong Kong, where she started working on a manuscript which would become the first edition of A History of Singapore. She chronicled Singapore’s growth from a small British port to a major trading and financial hub within the British Empire, and the political and social changes that had propelled it to being on its way to a modern city-state.

Historian Kevin Blackburn, in an essay, Mary Turnbull’s History Textbook for the Singapore Nation, published in 2012, said that Turnbull’s book “traced the development of Singapore, not as part of Malaya, but as a distinct nation with its own history separate from that of Malaya”.

Turnbull, too, explained the need for her book in a 1978 The Straits Times interview, “Up until the time Singapore became independent, histories of Singapore have been written as part of Malaya or Malaysia—Singapore was not taken alone.” The University of Singapore and Nanyang University had in the early 1970s begun introducing first-year Singapore history courses, but they were linked to Malaysian history.

In January 1980, Minister for Trade and Industry Goh Chok Tong said during a PAP 25th anniversary event that “the history of Singapore in the last 25 years should be written and then taught in schools.” His statements sparked off a public debate about the need to change the history curriculum. When the Ministry of Education decided, later in the year, to write a new history textbook for lower-secondary classes, the writers of the curriculum used A History of Singapore as a guide.

Turnbull’s book was updated in 1989 to include contemporary political developments like the 1988 General Election. She also wrote The Straits Settlements, 1826-67: Indian Presidency to Crown Colony, a book which the Singapore team used in its representations to the International Court of Justice in 2007 to argue that Singapore should have sovereignty over the island of Pedra Branca.

Even after retiring in 1990 from the University of Hong Kong, Turnbull continued writing books. She explained in a 1978 The Straits Times interview that history helps put things in perspective, “Remember the past, so you will know just how far you have come,” she said.

Turnbull eventually returned to the UK but died suddenly of heart failure in 2008—merely days after revising the third edition of A History of Singapore. Singapore and Malaysia always had a special place in her personal history. She said in the same 1978 interview, “Those 19 years I spent in Singapore and KL were the 19 most exciting years to be in the two countries.”

References

Albert Lau, “A modern History of Singapore, 1819-2005,” The Straits Times, October 1 2010.

Constance Mary Turnbull, A History of Modern Singapore 1819-2005
(Singapore: NUS Press, 2009).

Edwin Lee, “The Historiography of Singapore”, in Singapore Studies: Critical Surveys of the Humanities and Social Sciences, ed. Basant K. Kapur (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1986).

“Goh Chok Tong: Teach Lessons of Past 25 Years in Schools,” The Straits Times, January 28, 1980.

Kevin Blackburn, “Mary Turnbull’s History Textbook for the Singapore Nation,” in Studying Singapore’s Past: C.M. Turnbull and the History of Modern Singapore, ed. Nicholas Tarling (Singapore: NUS Press, 2012).

Liaw Wy-Cin, “Expert on S’pore History Dies at 81; Mary Turnbull, Author of A History of Singapore, Died last week,” The Straits Times, September 11, 2008.

Nancy Byramji, “Remember the Past—so you’ll Know Just how far you have Come,”
The Straits Times, March 19, 1978.

P. J. Thum, “A key Role in Telling the S’pore Story,” The Straits Times, October 6, 2008.

 

 

Mary Turnbull
United Kingdom, 1927–2008