Tilley, Patricia Anne; (2003) A study of European women in Colonial Malaya 1786-1942. Masters thesis (M.Phil), University of London.

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Abstract

This study examines European women in Colonial Malaya from the 1786 acquisition of Penang to Singapore's fall in 1942. It establishes the role they played within their own community and in relation to the indigenous people. The Introduction discusses their role in imperial ideology and places them within the context of colonial Malaya and other colonies of the empire. The remaining thesis divides into two basic sections. The first deals with European women in the Straits Settlements, 1786 to 1880, with lives mostly domestic and urban and marriages dictated by husbands' finances and peer-group expectations rather than bureaucratic rules. Their circumstances are gauged through housing, amenities and social life and the problems and health-hazards they faced in unfamiliar territory. Their expectations, formed by background and upbringing, are expressed through first impressions, attitude towards the colonised populations and perception of their domestic and public role. Expansion of British-controlled territory, in the later period with annexation of the Malay States, a larger post-war, British middle class and change of official policy towards women in the colonies encouraged an increase in their numbers, which also included a small percentage of working women. These increased numbers and tighter bureaucratic control over public and private life produced rigidly-defined internal hierarchies and obsessive preoccupation with status, particularly for the subordinate wife. Improved communications, periods back home for reasons of health and children's education and a social life based round exclusively European clubs and hill-stations made them more self-contained and further removed from the local scene. Emily Innes and Katharine Sim specifically illustrate, through their writings, the circumstances and aspirations of their peer group living in rural areas while the general chapters concentrate on urban women. The conclusion surveys the changes in the lives of European women across the period.

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