Prisoners Their Own Warders: A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits Settlements, Established 1825, Discontinued 1873, Together with a Cursory History of the Convict Establishments at Bencoolen, Penang and Malacca from the Year 1797

This is no dry administrative chronicle. McNair, a man who spent years inside the Singapore convict prison as a warden and later as its superintendent, writes with the granular authority of someone who knew these men by name, who witnessed their labor on the roads and buildings that transformed a swampy trading post into a modern city. The book documents the Singapore convict prison from its founding in 1825 to its closure in 1873, while tracing the penal system's roots back to Bencoolen, Penang and Malacca from 1797. McNair examines how Indian convicts were categorized, managed, and sometimes reformed through labor that built the colony's infrastructure. He offers candid observations on punishment, industry, and the fragile boundaries between warden and ward. For anyone interested in Singapore's founding, the mechanics of colonial power, or the human cost behind public works, this is an indispensable primary source written from inside the walls.