Cat With Nine Lives

In 1814, on the tiny Island of Saint Helena, was born a son, the third of four children, to Daniel Caldwell (1788-1828) and Mary Many (bn 1797). His name was Henry Charles Caldwell. Henry was the older brother of my great great grandfather Daniel Richard Francis Caldwell (1816-1875), who was to become an influential and controversial figure in the early days of Hong Kong. The Caldwell family lived on St Helena from 1770 to sometime in the 1820s, when they moved to Penang and later Singapore. The father Daniel, died in Penang in 1828. How the mother Mary survived with four children is not known. Yet one can surmise that those were difficult years, made more challenging by the unmanageable behaviour of young Daniel. At 18, Daniel was tossed out of the home whereupon he began a lucrative career as an opium smuggler. Henry, however, remained in Singapore where he found work in the Court Clerk’s office. Henry was smart, charming and may have been multilingual, as was his brother.

Henry’s qualities allowed him to move up the career ladder quickly. From 1836 to 1839 he served as a sworn clerk, from 1839 to 1855 he was the  senior clerk and from 1855 to 1856 he was the Registrar.

Registrar for just a year? Well, Henry, it seems, had visions of grandeur. He wanted to live in a large home, a home with class which, perhaps he thought, fitted his new station in life as Senior Clerk. In 1840, he commissioned architect George Coleman to design and build his dream house. The home was completed a year later, in 1841. And a marvellous home it was.

Although Henry was earning a reasonably good salary, it apparently was not enough to support construction debt and his growing family. By 1856, Henry was stretched to the limit and beyond. To stay afloat, he had taken to embezzling the court’s trust funds. He knew it was just a matter of time before he got caught. Henry was in serious trouble. He faced a lengthy prison sentence for non-payment of debt and worse, for embezzling in a position of trust.  Prison would have left his family destitute and his reputation forever in tatters.

It was an intolerable situation. Henry needed money and he needed to get out of Singapore forthwith. Henry and his family disappeared from Singapore overnight, leaving behind, I suppose, most of their belongings. Henry’s thievery was soon discovered and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Henry was a fugitive.

That was the sad end to upwardly mobile Henry Charles Caldwell, you might think. When convicted, he would no doubt have received an 8 to 12 year gaol sentence and be transported to a prison camp on the island of Bhutan. He might even have become fast friends with Mah Chow Wong, who was just arriving there. Wong was a notorious crime boss and close Hong Kong friend of his brother Daniel. He had received a hefty prison sentence for possession of stolen property. But that’s another story.

However, that was not how things ended for the disgraced Registrar. On the 2nd of June, 1859, Henry debarked in Hong Kong from the ship Northfleet. His family had preceded him. Then a remarkable thing happened. Nothing. Although the Hong Kong police held a warrant for his arrest, Henry was allowed to leave British jurisdiction and proceed to Portuguese Macao that same night. Henry eventually returned to Hong Kong and found work with the office of Messrs Cooper-Turner and Hazeland, solicitors. He then articled with barrister RC Owen and became an attorney and solicitor to the court.

It was not long before the capable Henry Charles Caldwell established a lucrative practise and became a leading lawyer in Hong Kong. Henry became a wealthy man who, it is said, paid back all the funds owed to the Singapore court and retired with his family to England. He died at his residence at Twickenham, England on 28 June, 1883, aged 68.

How Henry managed to skirt the law so effectively remains a mystery, although Henry’s brother, Daniel Caldwell, was strongly suspected of calling on his cadre of influential friends to make it happen. And no doubt Daniel empathized with Henry’s plight, for at just about the time that Henry was slipping out of Singapore, in 1856, Daniel was serving time at the Central Police Station in Hong Kong for failure to pay his debts. That too, is another story.

Henry sold his Singapore home to Father Jean-Marie Beurel in August of 1852 for 4000 francs. It was later added to and used by the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus as an orphanage and girls school. Henry’s original structure is known now as Caldwell House. It and the adjoining buildings still stand on Victoria Street in the core of the city. Today, this beautifully designed complex hosts a wedding and special events venue, a theatre, boutique shops and restaurants. Caldwell House was designated a gazetted national monument in 1990 and is one of Singapore’s oldest structures. It seems that everything which Henry Charles Caldwell touched bore fruit.