The period saw Singapore establish itself as an important trading port and developed into a major city with a rapid increase in population.

The city remained as the capital and seat of government until British rule was suspended in February 1942, when the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Singapore during World War II.

The British government and the East India Company were initially worried about the potential liability of this new outpost, but that was soon overshadowed by Singapore's rapid growth as an important trading post.

[citation needed] The status of Singapore as a British possession was cemented by the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, which carved up the Malay archipelago between the two colonial powers.

The advent of ocean-going steamships, which were faster and had a larger capacity than sailing ships, reduced transportation costs and led to a boom in trade.

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 dramatically reduced the travel time from Europe to East Asia, again providing a boost for trade.

[2] Despite Singapore's growing importance, the administration set up to govern the island was generally understaffed, poorly funded, weak, and ineffectual.

They aspired to make their fortune in Southeast Asia and return home to China, but most were doomed to a life of low-paying unskilled labour.

As a result of the administration's hands-off attitude and the predominantly male, transient, and uneducated nature of the population, the society of Singapore was rather lawless and chaotic.

[5] The colonial division of the architecture of Singapore developed in this period, recognisable elements which remain today in the form of shophouses, such as those found in Little India or Chinatown.

Apart from the indifference of British India's administrators to local conditions, there was immense bureaucracy and red tape which made it difficult to pass new laws.

As a Crown Colony, the Straits Settlements was ruled by a governor, based in Singapore, with the assistance of executive and legislative councils.

In 1889 Governor Sir Cecil Clementi Smith banned secret societies in colonial Singapore, driving them underground.

Nevertheless, many social problems persisted up through the post-war era, including an acute housing shortage and generally poor health and living standards.

On the day before the regiment was due to depart for Hong Kong, and hearing rumours that they were to be sent to fight the Ottoman Empire,[8] about half of the Indian soldiers mutinied.

They killed several of their officers and some civilians before the mutiny was suppressed by British Empire and allied forces plus local troops from Johore.

[9] This is how Lee Kuan Yew, its Prime Minister for 32 years, described Singapore: In these early decades, the island was riddled with opium houses and prostitution, and came to be widely monikered as "Sin-galore"[11] After the First World War, the British government devoted significant resources to building a naval base in Singapore, as a deterrent to the increasingly ambitious Japanese Empire.