Pioneer British agency house A. L. Johnston is formed

From 1820, as Singapore was opened for trade, British merchants who had established themselves in the Straits and Bengal formed mercantile (agency) houses in Singapore for the exchange of Straits produce, opium, tea and English manufactured wares.^[1] In 1820, Alexander Johnston & Co. (A. L. Johnston & Co.), one of the first European agency houses, was established in Singapore.^[2] It became a firm that was closely associated with the first 70 years of Singapore’s history.^[3]

The founder of A. L. Johnston & Co. was Alexander Laurie Johnston, a former sea captain who had arrived in Singapore in 1819.^[4] In 1823, Johnston acquired a few pieces of dry land on the western bank of the Singapore River where he built his seafront warehouse-cum-residence. It was a large complex facing Battery Road that stretched from the far side of Flint Street across to Fullerton Square and down to the river. It was nicknamed tanjong tangkap (which means “Catch all Trade Point” in Malay) for its prime location that allowed its proprietor to “catch” (tangkap) the merchant captains as they arrived.^[5] In 1824, the agency house had two other partners – Andrew Hay and Christopher Rideout Read. Read’s son, William H. M. Read, moved to Singapore in 1841 to join the company and took over from his father as partner when the senior Read retired the following year.^[6] The company had in its employee records names of old prominent residents such as Charles Burton Buckley and Walter Scott Duncan.^[7] Tanjong Tangkap was rebuilt after Johnston retired and left for England in 1841, but by 1848 it had fallen into a state of decay. A. L. Johnston & Co. then moved its premises across the road and erected a new building.^[8]

A. L. Johnston & Co. also had a branch in Riau. The company traded in commodities such as opium, pepper, gambier and spices, and acted as agents for a variety of enterprises, including steamers, banks, and insurance companies.^[9] William Read left Singapore in 1887 leaving William Edward Hooper, the local partner, to helm the company from 1888 until it went into liquidation in 1892.^[10] A misfortune hit Read several years before he died in 1909: he lost all his hard-earned capital through the negligence of stockbrokers.^[11] A. L. Johnston & Co. was one of the only two original Singapore firms (the other was Guthrie & Company) to have survived the stormy years when the merchants pressed and succeeded to remove the Straits Settlements from the control of the India Office.^[12]

References
1. Local.  (1850, March 8). The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1835–1869), p. 5.  Retrieved from NewspaperSG;  Makepeace, W., Brooke, G. E., & Braddell, R. St. J. (Eds.). (1991). One hundred years of Singapore (Vol. 2, p. 201). Singapore: Oxford University Press.  Call no.: RSING 959.57 ONE 
2. Drabble, J. H., & Drake, P. J. (1981, September). The British agency houses in Malaysia: Survival in a changing world. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 12(2), 298–303. Retrieved February 19, 2014, from JSTOR.
3. Mainly about Malayans.  (1939, March 26).  The Straits Times, p. 9. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
4. Cunyngham-Brown, S. (1971). The traders: A story of Britain's Southeast Asian commercial adventure (p. 27). London: Newman Neame. Call no.: RSING 382.0959 CUN; Singapore 100 years ago was a beautiful, growing town.  (1937, December 2).  The Straits Times, p. 18. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
5. Cunyngham-Brown, 1971, p. 43; Burnet, I. (2013). East Indies (p. 197).  Australia: Rosenberg.  Call no.: RSING 380.141383 BUR; Davies, D. (1954, August 22).  An ‘objectionable part of the compound’. The Straits Times, p. 14. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
6. Free port ideal was etched onto the hearts of all Reads.  (1983, November 13).  Singapore Monitor, p. 20; A story of life in early Singapore.  (1959, December 19).  The Straits Times, p. 12; The late W. H. Read, C. M. G.  (1909, June 5).  The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1884–1942), p. 7. Untitled. (1883, February 5). Straits Times Weekly Issue, p. 1. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
7. Straits Times Weekly Issue, 5 Feb 1883, p. 1; When we were five.  (1910, March 28).  The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1884–1942), p. 1.  Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
8. Cunyngham-Brown, 1971, p. 65; Davies, D. (1956, April 29). Johnson lived and worked in godown. The Straits Times, p. 12. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
9. Straits Times Weekly Issue, 5 Feb 1883, p. 1. The following is extracted from Mr. Multi's Overland directions in 1837.  (1846, August 15). The Straits Times, p. 3. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
10. The Straits Times, 26 Mar 1939, p. 9.
11. The Late W.H. Read. C.M.G. (1909, Jun 5). Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1884–1942), p. 7. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
12. Cunyngham-Brown, 1971, pp. 88–89.