Thatcher and the sons of empire

A preferred book café here in Singapore is just a medium stroll from our apartment.

Along the route is Killiney Road with its old-style shop houses that are now a range of eateries where you’ll find French pastries, Taiwanese porridge or Malaysian Rendang. Just past these houses is the cul-de-sac of Dublin Road, which has the most elegant houses that even wealthy Singaporeans would envy.

What caught my attention on a recent visit to Hong Kong are the prominent place names held by Jardine and Matheson. Both of these “gentlemen” earned vast fortunes shipping opium into China in the 19th century. William Jardine who died in 1843 as the Right Honourable MP for Ashburton in Devon was for almost his entire career a drug baron. He made his fortune as a “commercial agent” for opium shipped out of Bengal into China. It was in 1839 that Lin Zexu, under orders from the emperor, confiscated and destroyed the opium in the Cantonese warehouses of Jardine and Matheson when all the trouble started. Jardine appealed to Lord Palmerston to send gunships to put manners on the Chinese “barbarians”. His proposal was given approval and support from parliament and Queen Victoria.