It has been said that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing. Conversely, can it be said that all it takes for injustice to be averted is for a good person to act?
Maria Dyer was one woman who saw injustice but did not walk away without a fight. Born in England in 1803, Maria seemed fated to lead a missionary life. The two most important men in her life – her father and husband – were part of the London Missionary Society.
The young Protestant missionary, on her arrival in Singapore in 1842, saw piteous, ragged groups of young girls, some as young as six, displayed for sale on the streets. These were the mui tsai or child slaves.
To see these young girls sold like cattle, and condemned to lives of servitude and abuse must have shaken Maria to the core. But the practice of the mui tsai trade was entrenched in Chinese society then. For all of Maria’s righteous outrage, the righting of such an obvious wrong must have seemed an almost insurmountable task.
It would have been all too easy for Maria to simply shake her head at the sad sight, like so many other people must have done. But this outsider was no passive passerby. She petitioned the Colonial Governor, Samuel George Bonham, for the right to start a school and home for the mui tsai, worked to raise funds for it and took in 19 destitute girls in 1842.
Back then, Chinese females lacked societal status as the Chinese considered girls to be inferior to boys, and female education was almost unheard of. To address this, Maria set up her school from the goodness of her heart, coupled with her personal belief that God would provide for the needs of those homeless and abused children.
With her school in a small shophouse on North Bridge Road, Maria was only able to save a limited number of girls from bondage. However, she ensured that they obtained quality education with a curriculum that included reading, writing, sewing and embroidery. As there were no school fees, girls from poor families also had the chance to be educated in Maria’s school.
Following the death of her husband in 1843, Maria became a salaried missionary of the London Missionary Society and continued to work in the Chinese Girls' School.
In 1939, the school stopped giving free education when it became a government-aided school. Maria’s school later became St Margaret’s Primary and Secondary Schools, and was the first girls’ school in not only Singapore, but also among the first in Southeast Asia.
Being a pioneer female mission school in Singapore, St Margaret’s has made a mark in the history of Singapore. It is an institution that has made a difference in the lives of thousands of girls – and all this sprang from Maria’s simple desire to save 19 girls from slavery. “A seed was sown because a young person had a vision,” said Dr James Hudson Taylor III, Maria’s great-great-grandson.
Ms Lim Ai Kiok, a long-time teacher at St Margaret’s School, reflected that Maria’s legacy remains alive in the school today. “In order to provide schools and education for girls, she worked tirelessly throughout her time in the Straits Settlements.”
St Margaret’s school mission states that the school was established for the education and nurture of young girls, that each may develop in body, soul and spirit, and be trained in righteousness to become a woman of God, equipped for every good work. “We need only look back at the early history of the school for the inspiration to fulfill that mission,” said Lim.
“Maria’s values of compassion and empathy live on today in the character of the school. These values have been enshrined in the school motto – Charity, Patience and Devotion. In 2012, the 170th year of the founding of St Margaret’s, the school organised a number of charitable events around the theme of ‘Blessed To Be A Blessing’. This theme was inspired by Maria,” she added.
Maria moved to Penang with her children in 1844. The epitaph on her grave in a Penang cemetery reads, “She devoted her life to the extension of Christ’s kingdom among the Chinese females in the Straits.” Maria is remembered as the founder of the earliest girls’ school in Singapore. In Singapore for just a few years from 1842-1844, her legacy has stood the test of time.
By Alvin Chua and Valerie Foo
