Churchill and the Lion City

Introduction: Last Lion and the Lion City: Churchill, Singapore and Empire

Churchill, Singapore and Empire 1 1 INTRODUCTION Last Lion and the Lion City: Churchill, Singapore and Empire Brian P. Farrell The British Empire had a profound influence on world history in the 20th century. So did Winston Spencer Churchill. The two also had a profound influence on each other. During an active public life that ran from 1900 to 1955, Churchill promoted the vision and reality of empire from a unique array of vantage points: statesman, politician, diplomat, orator, journalist, historian, national and world hero. As Prime Minister during the Second World War, Churchill became the icon of an empire waging total war, to prevent the destruction of a world order it did so much to build. Churchill squared up with conviction to profound forces challenging this Britishcentred world order, famously declaring in November 1942: “I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire”.1 Fate had other ideas. The Empire over which he presided gave the United Kingdom the means to play an imperial role in world affairs. Both empire and role barely survived Churchill, crumbling visibly as he declined personally. This process began even as Churchill entered public life, defined his public career, and stemmed in part from challenges he helped to confront. Perhaps the most dramatic single failure in Churchill’s long association with the British Empire was his failure to defend it against Japanese attack in what the British called the “Far East”, in 1941. Punctuated by the humiliating fall of “fortress” Singapore in February 1942, defeat by Japan seemed to shatter the prestige on which British power in Asia relied. Given the eastward trend in empire after the “loss” of the American colonies in 1783, the fall of Singapore suggested the empire’s days were 2 Brian P. Farrell numbered. The number turned out to be rather large, but the connection remained dramatic. After British power withdrew from India in 1947, post-war Singapore became the hub of British efforts to remain an imperial power in Asia — and therefore a mainstay of British efforts to preserve a wider role in world affairs. When, barely three years after Churchill died, a British government announced in January 1968 that it would rapidly withdraw British military garrison forces from Singapore, and all points “East of Suez”, the number seemed called. Churchill himself never set foot in Singapore. But it played dramatic roles in the fortunes of the Empire, and the British world role, to which he devoted his public life. This volume stems from a symposium jointly presented by Churchill College Cambridge University and the National University of Singapore (NUS), held on the NUS campus in April 2010. 2010 marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of Churchill College, supported by Sir Winston himself. Spurring the evolution of the College is the archive that has grown around its central collection, Churchill’s own personal papers. Resting on the massive Winston Spencer Churchill Papers, the Churchill Archives Centre has become the principal archive holding private papers relating to British 20th-century history, including for example the Margaret Thatcher Papers. The Centre is an indispensable stop for serious researchers working on topics related to British policy in a wide range of areas, including three with which Churchill became so closely identified: defence, foreign relations, and the Empire/Commonwealth. NUS is the premier educational institution of the Southeast Asian island city-state which played such a significant role in the Empire/Commonwealth during Churchill’s public life — and remained central to British efforts to manage Churchill’s legacy for a generation after he retired. And the NUS main campus sits on the site of one of the last engagements in the February 1942 battle Churchill himself defined as “Britain’s worst military disaster”. Sir David Wallace, Master of Churchill College, and Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, President of NUS, decided to sponsor an academic symposium to explore the connections between Churchill, Empire, and Singapore, by bringing together the college that preserves so much of that story with the national university of a state so heavily shaped by it. The symposium of April 2010 was the result, and this volume is the outcome. There is a very large literature indeed devoted to Winston Spencer Churchill, with no sign of the tap running dry. Even as this book goes to press, readers have been offered two fresh major monograph studies of...