A Soldier’s Home
To get to Singapore in the late 1800s involved a long, tedious sea journey with the very real prospect of bad weather and storms on the way. Troopships were never designed to be comfortable, but merely to transport as many troops as possible to the far flung places of the British Empire.
Life on board was hard as there would be duties, inspections, physical training etc. It was anything but a cruise. Even so, there would be a sense of excitement among the young soldiers who may never have been far from their homes before.
Today, we take international travel for granted as we can get to anywhere we want in a day or so. but it was a much greater adventure over a hundred years ago. Soldiers on their way to the far east would spend several weeks on board as the ship made its way to Singapore calling at places such as Gibraltar, Malta, Aden and India dropping of troops destined to serve in these places.
The Guardroom
The Guardroom at Fort Siloso was built during the early 20th Century. It is fitted out to represent a typical Guardroom of the 1880s.
Once at any army camp, a soldier would quickly become acquainted with the Guardroom. A fair bit of his time would be spent on guard duty. This could be quite a boring duty, with only the visits by the Orderly Sergeant and Orderly Officer punctuating the dull routine.
Barrack Life
Home for the soldier was the Barrack Room. An 1880s barrack room has been faithfully created at Fort Siloso and gives a clear insight into barrack life for the first soldiers to serve at Siloso.
The Cookhouse. A health inspector would be reduced to tears by what he sees here in an 1880s Cookhouse. The Orderly Serjeant is checking the quality of the men’s food — rather him than me.
Clearly the dhobi (laundry) is not up to scratch here. The soldier is clearly not a happy man about something and is pointing out the error of his ways to the dhobi wallah.
A soldier has to be smart on parade. All camps had tailors to make ill-fitting uniform as presentable as possible.
Life in any army was not very comfortable in the late 1800s and early 1900s. However, living conditions and food changed for the better as the 1900s drew on. The 21st century soldier has far superior accommodation and facilities than the soldiers depicted above. Superior even to the generation of soldiers I served with in the 1960s.
The Barrack Square
The Barrack Square on Blakang Mati. This is representative of the early British military buildings on the island.
The Square on Google EarthOther Military Buildings
There are still many old British military buildings on Sentosa which are still in use today.
This building, near the Cable Car Station, was originally a British Military Hospital built in the 1880s. It continued to be used as a hospital during the Japanese occupation and afterwards until the 1950s. It then became a training centre for the Royal Artillery. On the British withdrawal from Singapore, the Singapore Combat Engineers moved in. As Sentosa became developed for leisure and tourism, the building began a new life as a museum, which it still is today.
Another former British military Building on Blakang Mati.
This photograph of British Military buildings is shown courtesy of the Sentosa Leisure Group. It is not to be reproduced without their permission.