Echoes of Cosmopolitanism: Colonial Penang’s ‘Indigenous’ English Press

Abstract

As gateways to China and the Dutch East Indies, the Straits Settlements of Penang, Malacca and Singapore were the citadels of British imperial expansion in East Asia. These flourishing, cosmopolitan port cities — connected to the great Indian Ocean trading routes — had long been centres of economic and cultural exchange. The open-door policies of the British prompted a massive influx of immigration during the colonial period, resulting in a multi-ethnic Straits society that looked not just to London as its metropole, but to China, India, the Arab world and beyond.