‘Chinese New Year 1915 will long be remembered in the Straits Settlements,’ write Edwin and Mary Brown in their extraordinary account of the 1915 Singapore Mutiny. ‘We left for home, had a tiffin, and went to our rooms for a lie-off, having arranged to go for a good walk when the heat of the day was over. We had our tea, and at 5 pm got into the trap. We drove along Tanglin Road, into Stephens Road, and along Bukit Timah Road to the junction of Cluny Road, and there we dismissed the syce. We thought it a curious fact that no-one was playing tennis…and there was not a soul to be seen on the garrison golf course… You can imagine our horror when we found that the 5th Light Infantry had broken out in open mutiny and had been in Tanglin that afternoon, and were even then supposed to be marching on Singapore!’

So begins this enthralling husband-and-wife account of an unexpected and terrifying episode in Singapore’s history that saw 850 Indian soldiers revolt and slaughter 47 British and local soldiers and civilians. Never before transcribed, this memoir is published for the first time, 100 years after the events took place.

The cover design of Singapore Mutiny uses a collage of photographs provided by the Brown heirs and authors from their family albums. Our cover cooks used digital colorization to infuse life and drama into the images, while the sinuous outline of the typography label lends an Indian-inspired tinge.