The Shadows Behind the Portrait: Sir Frank Swettenham and the Secrets of Empire

One of the National Museum of Singapore’s most treasured artifacts is a large, full-length portrait of Sir Frank Athelstane Swettenham. For many museum visitors, perhaps those unfamiliar with the history of the region, it may not be the subject of the painting that draws attention—rather, it is the artist: John Singer Sargent. That Singapore even possesses a work by this world-renowned painter is remarkable in itself. And yet the subject of the painting happens to be one of the most controversial and scandalous figures ever to walk the corridors of power in Singapore and Malaya—and a man who plays a pivotal role in Palace of Ghosts.

A close up of the portrait of Sir Frank Athelstane Swettenham by John Singer Sargent from the Collection of the National Museum of Singapore

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He is introduced in the book’s Dramatis Personae as follows:

“SIR FRANK ATHELSTANE SWETTENHAM (1850–1946). Swettenham was Governor of the Straits Settlements between 1901 and 1904, and regarded by some as an expert in all things Malay. He became a bitter adversary of Sultan Ibrahim. He was capable and fiercely ambitious, but held a complete disregard for protocol, standards, or rules—unless they served his own purpose. Lauded as a colonial stalwart while concurrently identified as corrupt by many British colonial officials, he was one of the British Empire’s most controversial figures. Eventually retiring to write several books about Southeast Asia, he lived to the ripe old age of 96.”

An photograph of Swettenham, from the frontespiece of his 1904 book Unaddressed Letters, during the height of his colonial career in Southeast Asia 

As readers of Palace of Ghosts: Singapore’s Untold History will know, colonial history is rarely as clean or heroic as official records suggest. Behind the polished portraits and carefully curated memoirs lie murkier truths—none more so than in the life of Sir Frank Swettenham.

Swettenham, long hailed as a founding father of British Malaya, is frequently praised for his command of the Malay language, his diplomatic finesse, and his role in developing Kuala Lumpur. But there has always been something a little too neat, too carefully controlled, about his story. Dig deeper, and troubling patterns begin to surface.

One of the most consistent criticisms from both contemporaries and modern historians is his tendency to embellish his own achievements. In his published works—Malay Sketches and British Malaya, among others—he casts himself as the enlightened guide leading the Malays toward progress. The reality, however, was far more self-serving. His narratives often marginalize the contributions of others, particularly local leaders, in favor of positioning himself as the indispensable colonial hero.

There were also persistent whispers of impropriety during his tenure. As Resident-General of the Federated Malay States, Swettenham oversaw a period of rapid infrastructure expansion. Yet some of the contracts—especially in railways and tin mining—raised eyebrows for their lack of transparency and their apparent favoritism toward certain associates. Nothing was ever proven in court, but the suspicions never quite disappeared.

A first edition copy of Swettenham's famous 1907 book British Malaya, in which the author maliciosuly attacks Sultan Ibrahim of Johor and his family.

His personal life was no less unsettling. His second marriage, to Valerie Tuck—decades his junior—ended in scandal with a high-profile divorce in 1938. More chilling, however, is the fate of his first wife, Alexandra, who was quietly committed to a lunatic asylum in England, reportedly at Swettenham’s behest. The details remain murky, but the implications are disturbing—a stark reminder of how colonial power could so easily silence inconvenient truths.

These are not merely historical curiosities. They reveal the deeper character of a man who shaped not just landscapes and laws, but the very narrative of empire. The more one learns, the more Swettenham emerges not as a visionary, but as a deeply ambiguous figure: clever, ruthless, and unafraid to manipulate people and systems to serve his own ends. Swettenham’s biographer Henry Sackville Barlow says of him, “Swettenham was undoubtedly a very able man, but not a very nice one.”

A 1917 photogrpah of Sir Frank Swettenham from the National Portrait Gallery, London, UK

Palace of Ghosts delves into this complexity—and uncovers a side of Swettenham that official history has long ignored. One of the most explosive revelations in the book concerns his duplicitous, even criminal, behaviour toward Sultan Ibrahim. Swettenham may have gotten away with it during his lifetime, just as he did with many of his other misdeeds—but not this time. For the first time, Palace of Ghosts brings this buried truth to light. Though long dead, Swettenham doesn’t escape scrutiny—not in these pages.

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While I won’t spoil the story here, suffice it to say that the polished civility of the colonial elite often concealed much darker, often sinister, realities. Sir Frank Swettenham was no exception.

"Palace of Ghosts: Singapore's Untold History" was published in April 2025 and is available from Amazon: click here for further details