Palace of Ghosts: Singapore's Untold History

In today’s world, it might be hard to feel much sympathy for someone like Lydia Cecilia Hill. And yet, the young woman known to us as Cecily in Palace of Ghosts emerges as a figure steeped in quiet tragedy, her story threaded with a sense of elegy. It is easy to imagine that some fragile echo of her spirit still clings to the decaying walls of Istana Woodneuk, where she stayed for a brief visit in the 1930s — a fleeting presence now folded into the mansion’s long twilight. Lydia Cecilia Hill (1913-1940) photograph from 1938 Find out more: read the story A Familiar Story Imagine this: a teenage girl with little formal education, from a small country town, but gifted with striking beauty and irresistible talent; she lands a job at a prestigious London dance club. There, she meets a man decades her senior—wealthy, worldly, powerful and handsome. He lavishes her with gifts, praise, and affection. To her, it must have felt like the start of a dazzling new life. It’s a story we’ve heard bef...

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 Find our more: read the book 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 r...