24 SINGAPORE OLD STRAITS AND NEW HARBOUR, 
surveyed it with him so he felt quite confident about it although 
others had been afraid to go in. 
There can have been no difficulty in sailing into New Harbour 
in 1857 seeing that P. and O. offices there were opened in 1852 
(Anecdotal History page 566). 
AceDe 1900; 
Singapore Free Press 3.1.00. 
It was Sir Henry Keppel who first of all in H. M.S. Raleigh 
in 1856 sailed from the Westward through the new channel which 
his examination and recommendation created as the New Har- 
bour Singapore. 
This is an absurd mis-statement. Hundreds of ships must have 
passed through New Harbour before 1856. 
Straits Settlements Government Gazette Extraordinary 19.4.00. 
Notification No. 401. 
In order to perpetuate the remembrance of the fact that the 
capabilities of the New Harbour at Singapore as a passage for 
ships of the deepest draught and an excellent Harbour were first 
demonstrated by the Hon. Capt. Keppel, R.N. of H.M.S. Dido 
now Admiral of the Fleet Sir H. Keppel G.C.B., D.C.L. 
It is hereby notified for public information that the New 
Harbour will in future be called and known by the name of Keppel 
Harbour Singapore. 
Singapore 19th April, 1900. 
Keppel Harbour is a good name and the late Admiral deserved all 
the hono 1rs conferred upon him, but the reasons given for bestowing 
this particular one are very uncorvincing. Captain Keppel was here 
in the Dido in 1842-1844 but it was not till his next visit in the 
Maeander in 1848 that he discovered all that he himself ever 
claimed to have discovered namely that New Harbour was an 
excellent place wherein to lay a ship up to refit and afforded great 
natural advantages for a coaling station. 
The tradition that the Johore straits are the old Singapore 
straits will probably never die, but the new legend that Admiral 
Keppel was the first person to take a good sized ship through Keppel 
Harbour has got so short a start that it should be possible to 
overtake it. | 
Jour, Straits Brench R. A. Soc. No, 60. 1011, 
