SINGAPORE — For over 60 years, a portrait of her great-great-grandfather was hung on the wall in the house of Ms Heather Lumsden’s parents in Weybridge, a small town near London.

But as a young child, Ms Lumsden — who is visiting Singapore this week — was unaware that the man in the portrait was the first British resident and commandant of Singapore, Major-General William Farquhar.

Painted by John Graham, the portrait dates back to 1830 and is one of the diverse selection of rare artefacts featured in an exhibition titled, An Old New World: From the East Indies to the Founding of Singapore, 1600s–1819.

A portrait of Major-General William Farquhar on loan to the National Museum of Singapore by Farquhar's great-great-granddaughter Heather Lumsden (pictured, far right). Photo: Najeer Yusof/TODAY

Featuring more than 220 artefacts, including 75 loaned from institutional and private collections, the exhibition will be running at the National Museum of Singapore from Saturday (Sept 21) until March 29 next year.

The 75 artefacts include personal collections from the families of Sir Stamford Raffles and William Farquhar, as well as treasures from international museums such as the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London and Rjiksmuseum in Amsterdam, Holland.

To mark the country’s bicentennial, the exhibition explores Singapore’s rich history in the 200 years leading up to the establishment of the British East India Company trading settlement in Singapore in 1819.

Mr Daniel Tham, the lead curator at the National Museum of Singapore, said: “Singapore has never existed in isolation, and its establishment in 1819 as an East India Company trading settlement cannot be fully appreciated without considering its longer history and broader regional context.” 

As the exhibition’s title suggests, many items on display pre-date the arrival of Raffles and Farquhar. For example, there is a map of Singapore, the southern Malay peninsula and Sumatra drawn by the Ottoman scholar Katib Celebi, who lived in the 17th century in an area that is now modern Turkey.

Another map on display is even older, dating back to charts drawn on the first Dutch expedition to the region in 1598.

The exhibition also emphasises the way that Aceh, now part of modern Indonesia, was thriving economically and culturally before the Europeans arrived in the neighbourhood.

An interactive display called "Meeting of the worlds", part of an exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore to mark Singapore's bicentennial celebrations. Photo: Najeer Yusof/TODAY

The highlights of the various displays relate to the founders of modern Singapore. For instance, Raffles’ silver tea urn bearing his family crest, is one of the numerous items loaned to the museum by Mr Michael Stewart, who is a descendant of Sir Stamford Raffles’ sister Marianne Raffles.

The tea urn, which Raffles took on his voyage from England to Bencoolen — now Bengkulu in Sumatra — in 1817, was considered an indispensable item for travelling in the 19th century, given the popularity of tea consumption among the British.

Early this year, there were new insights into Singapore's early colonial history when a book titled 200 Years of Singapore and the United Kingdom featured a series of essays by scholars, historians and subject specialists from both here and the UK, writing on the shared history between the two countries.

The book contends that Farquhar was given too little credit for the early development of modern Singapore at the time the British arrived.

Having loaned the portrait of her great-great-grandfather, Ms Lumsden, 67, who lives in England, expressed her happiness that he finally got the credit he deserved.

Aside from the portrait, Ms Lumsden’s cousins also loaned several personal items to the museum, including a pair of Sumatran-style keris — a ceremonial sword that were possibly presented to Farquhar during the signing of commercial treaties — as well as a silver cup that was presented to Farquhar as a farewell gift on his departure from Singapore.

Much of the early trade that flowed into Singapore was a result of Farquhar’s strong ties with merchants while in Malacca.

“Farquhar had a good relationship with local rulers. He even spoke good Malay,” Mr Tham said, adding that the artefacts are a testament to his standing among merchants.

Ms Lumsden, who was born in Singapore and whose late father was a gynaecologist at KK Women's and Children's Hospital in the 1950s, smiled and said: “Now that the portrait is in this museum, he’s finally home.”

The exhibition can be found at the National Museum of Singapore’s exhibition galleries at the basement level. Admission is free for Singaporeans and permanent residents.