Singapore was born in 1819, the offspring of Stamford Bingley Raffles, the British Empire, and market economics. Raffles was a rather ineffectual parent, abandoning the young Singapore when it was just five years old. Despite this unpaternal behaviour, it is rumoured that Singapore still holds him in high regard, to the point of naming mental institutions after the man. After drifting from job to job, the young Singapore eventually found work in the East India Company.