The Reutens

A Eurasian family under British Rule

Evolution of the Eurasian Community

With the arrival of the British at the tail end of the 1700’s the Eurasian community saw a new phase in its evolution outside Malacca and in the newly esablished ports of Penang and Singapore. The Reutens family tracks this new direction beginning with Philip Reutens who arrives in Penang from Ambon then under the VOC around 1790.

The family also revises a perception of Eurasians being the product only of mixed marriages between Europeans and Asians. As revealed in this article the Eurasian identity also included Christianised Asians from Indonesia and Thailand and more, with no European ethnicity but had become Christianised through conversion.

Under British rule intermarriages also happened with a broader group of Europeans including French and British settlers like the Lowes, Carruthers and Moissinacs mentioned below that came with the new administration. The core identity however retained the same core values of: western dress, english speaking, living in close proximity in ‘Eurasian ‘ neighbourhoods, with social lives centred around the Eurasian community and church. The British also brought Ceylonese Burghers and Anglo Indians already skilled in the British administration, that would intermarry into the local Eurasian communities.

Philip Reutens 1755 ~ unknown

The Dutch East India Company was in terminal decline through the 1780s, declared bankruptcy in 1799, and was formally dissolved. But the crisis was visible by the 1780s, VOC wages were going unpaid, garrisons were being reduced, and Ambonese auxiliary soldiers and sailors who had built their lives around VOC service were being cut loose across the archipelago

Philip Reutens born around 1755 in Ambon, would have come of age precisely during this period when Ambonese men in his position, junior officers, converted Christians, with maritime skills needed to find another European patron, which is probably what brought him to Penang around the time of its foundation in 1786.

Ambonese Kapitan Muda | Philip Reuten’s Marriage Document

He is not listed in the Penang Census of 1788,¹ but records show that in 1791 he marries a Thai Catholic living in the Eurasian, Catholic settlement at Pulau Tikus. Variously described as a Captain, a Dutch sailor and trader in many sources, the truth is - he was not Dutch, nor a Captain. He is Ambonese and my AI generated illustration of him here reflects those Austronesian-Papuan ethnic features, which are evident in his descendants (see George Reutens below) .

The marriage record also indicates he was a “Kapitan Muda” , literally “Young Captain”, a specific junior rank within the indigenous administrative and military hierarchy established by the Dutch East India Company. His wife is Joanna Sikurioum, a Siamese catholic, identified in the census as head of a household with four dependents implying she might be a widow, three years before her marriage to Philip.

Penang Census of 1788

The census also captures the diversity that existed in emerging Penang: Total 1,109 Individuals. Chinese: 417 , South Indian Muslims 211, Malays 97: (Peninsula 44, Indonesian 53 ) Non European Catholics: 133 ( from Siam: 68, fIndonesia 1, Philippines 1, Malaya: Penang, Queda, Malacca, Perak, Borneo:: 46, China 1, Macao 2 , India: Malabar, Cochin, Bengal: 11,, Madagascar 3 ) Europeans and Americans (Merchants, Writers, and Tradesmen): 20, Unknown origin: 61, Plantation and Kampong Residents (not in Georgetown): 170 a mix of Chinese, Malay and Christisn labourers and settlers ,

Early Views of Penang

Around 1790, Penang or Prince of Wales Island, was a rapidly developing, chaotic British trading outpost and penal settlement founded just four years earlier that was quickly transforming from thick jungle into a bustling, multicultural settlement, with over 1,000 inhabitants by 1789,

Pulau Tikus

Pulau Tikus, located about 2 miles northwest of George Town’s center, was a rural, coastal frontier, a landscape of agricultural estates, mangrove mudflats, and small ethnic kampungs. The area was named after a small rocky islet (Pulau Tikus or “Rat Island”) situated just off the coast. At low tide, sand dunes and mudflats between the island and the mainland appeared to look like a string of scurrying rats, giving the area its name.

The small but diverse population in Pulau Tikus included a Burmese Community, among the first to settle in this area. They founded Kampung Ava, located near what is now Burma Lane. The Siamese community then settled alongside the Burmese in Kampung Siam, along with Indian Laborers and a pioneer group of Eurasians that arrived with Francis Light in 1786 who initially settled in the George Town city center around China Street then Kampung Serani in Pulau Tikus became more fully established with a second, larger wave of refugees from Phuket around 1810–1811.

Pulau Tikus: Map of Eurasian Homes| Church of the Immaculate Conception | St Josephs

Buildings in Pulau Tikus in 1790 were almost exclusively “Malay-type” wooden structures on stilts, with attap roofs. The famous Church of the Immaculate Conception began as a wooden chapel until a brick and mortar structure was built in 1819. In the photo of teachers at St Joseph, is my great grandfather Michael Maxwell Scully whose mother was Regina Reutens, grandaughter of Philip Reutens. Pulau Tikus would become a significant enclave for Eurasian, although many Eurasians also lived in the city where they worked, particularly around Argus Lane, Love Lane, Muntri Street, and the area behind the Church of the Assumption on Bishop Street.

Charles Augustus Reutens 1892 ~1956

1900’s Penang: Port of Penang | Beach St. | St. Xavier Institution

By the early 1900’s Penang was a bustling British Crown Colony in the Straits Settlements, serving as a key trading port driven by rubber and tin, with a diverse population dominated by Chinese and Tamil communities in George Town. It was a period of high economic volatility and rapid expansion, characterized by a lively harbour, colonial architecture, and severe flooding in December.

Charles Reutens, Louise Moissinac and their son Gerard Stanislaus, one of their 10 Children,

In 1916, Charles Reutens married his fellow teacher working at St.Xavier’s institution, Louise Moissinac, at the Church of the Assumption in George Town. Family members recall that Louise used to have outfits made for her daughters by a dressmaker using laces and materials from Europe, with matching hats, gloves, stockings and shoes.

Louise had a Javanese mother Ponnia, married to Theodore Moissinac a manager of tobacco and coffee plantations, who famously used to favour her dark-skinned grandchildren, calling them intan manis or beautiful jewels’, an inversion of the hierarchies based on skin colour that were present within Penang’s Eurasian community. Their social world was a small one, centred on the church, school, employed largely as civil servants with the British Administration

George Samuel Reutens 1841 - 1923

G. S. Reutens was born and educated in Penang, joining John Company in 1856. shortly after transferring to the Marine Department in Singapore, where he worked until retiring in 1902 .

19th Century Singapore

1860’s Singapore was a bustling, rapidly developing British trading port that was a cosmopolitan trading hub undergoing transition, dominated by shipping, warehousing, and early construction. The administrative focus of the British Straits Settlements moved from Penang to Singapore in 1833, attracting many Eurasian civil servants and traders to the new centre,

George Samuel Reutens with his daughters | Magdalene | Cecilia

George was the son of Philip Reutens and Clara Painter, the daughter of the famous rounder-up of pirates whose real name was Pinto, which he changed on entering the East India Company’s Service where he was hired by Francis Light to get rid of all the pirates operating in Penang waters.

He had two wives and thirteen children. His daughter Cecilia married Charles Lowe, her daughter Evelina was killed in ULu Tiram. Magdalene married into the Scully family that I’m also descended from; Clara married Captain David Carruthers that my great grandmother Virgina Miles had also been married to,

The Post Colonial Eurasian Community

Under British hegemony, Malaya was one of the most profitable territories of the Empire, being the world's largest producer of tin and later rubber with many Eurasians enjoying privieged positions in this economy and the civil administratuib. The 1950s and 1960s saw a mass emigration of Eurasians to the United Kingdom, Australia and other Commonwealth countries following the withdrawal of British personnel from Singapore and Malaya.

Due to economic uncertainty post World War Two, Political and Social Instability such as the 1969 KL riots, Nationalist Policies favouring local languages and ethnic groups gave concern about career and future prospects led to many Eurasians including descendant sof the Reutens,decided to migrate to Australia, the UK and Canada. Even for the Eurasians that stayed behind the community continued to shrink as a result of assimilation through inter-marriages with other ethnic groups.

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Sources:

Intimate Interactions: Eurasian family histories in colonial Penang Kristy Walker

Identity, Community and Place Ione Jolly

History of Penang Eurasians

Anthony Siberts Blog

Downloads : Penang Census 1788,

1. available after the paywall for paid subscribers