page_title: Lydia Cecilia Hill
section_title: Engagement and denial
hierarchical_section_title: Lydia Cecilia Hill / Cissie and the Sultan / Engagement and denial
caption_attribution_description: Newspaper image of Lydia Cecilia Hill (1913-1940) in an article dated 1937. The article reports a burglary which occurred at her home in Herne Bay, Kent, England in 1937. She was a favourite of the Sultan of Johore from 1934-1940, and was previously a dancer.
context_page_description: Lydia Cecilia Hill, known as Cissie Hill or Cecily Hill, was an English cabaret dancer notable for being a favourite of Ibrahim, Sultan of Johor and for being briefly engaged to him. A new Art Deco house, Mayfair Court, was funded for her in Herne Bay, Kent, by the Sultan. She was killed during World War II in her native Canterbury at the age of 27 in a German airstrike. There is an elaborate, marble monument on her grave in Herne Bay cemetery, Eddington, paid for by the Sultan.
context_section_description: On 12 May 1937 the Sultan attended the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in London, and is said to have renewed the relationship with Cissie then, divorced his Scottish wife Helen née Wilson in March 1938, and sailed home in the same month to Singapore and Johor with his new companion and her mother. As they left England it was observed that Cissie was wearing a large diamond engagement ring. By May 1938 the young girl from Kent was back in Colombo where there were rumours of an announcement of an engagement before 9 September 1938 between the "platinum blonde" and "former glamour girl" Cissie and the 64-year-old divorcee Sultan, but on reaching Singapore the Sultan promptly denied any engagement. The Melbourne Argus quoted from the Daily Express that:
  "After the Sultan had divorced his wife recently he went to Ceylon and renewed his acquaintance there with Miss Hill, who was spending a holiday there with her mother. Later the Sultan, Miss Hill and her mother toured Sumatra. Yesterday they went to Singapore by air, presumably on their way to Johore."
  The public denial of the engagement may have been associated with political pressure from the British colonial staff at Singapore:
  "A cabaret-girl-Sultana the sahibs considered quite impossible. Social royalists, they ganged up and put moral pressure on the precedent-breaking Sultan by unanimously refusing his invitations, although Miss Hill was properly chaperoned at the palace by her mother. The Sultan had his revenge, by ordering the sahibs off his golf course, their children away from his bandstand" ". . . When Singapore's British society behaved stuffily toward his show-girl fiancee, the Sultan struck back by firing all the Britons in his service and planting shrubs on the fairways and greens of the golf course used by the sahibs, which was on his property."
  The British Colonial staff sent reports to England that the issue of marrying Miss Hill and a quarrel with the Governor of Straits Settlements had become problematic, and Cissie Hill (wearing a large diamond ring) and her mother were given first class passage on the ship Indrapoera at Singapore to arrive at Southampton dock on 26 July 1938. The Sultan stood publicly on the dock to wave goodbye, before returning to his playboy life in Sumatra. The Press statement by the Sultan was telegraphed as follows:
  "I have never suggested marrying Miss Hill (stop) Any suggestion of political implications is a lie (stop) Any suggestion of my not faithfully carrying out all agreements with the British Government is also a lie (stop)"
  By way of explanation for this, on 19 September 1938 a statement was given to the Daily Express by Roland St John Braddell (1880–1966), then legal adviser in Malaya. He said: "As far as I am concerned, I should love to see the Sultan of Johore married to this most charming lady, Miss Lydia Hill." He added that the Sultan could not marry at present because there was no mosque in Genoa where he was staying, because he could do nothing without the permission of the British Government, and because the Sultan was ill: "He nearly died recently in Johore", having "become ill with heart trouble and gout". The lawyer had been instructed to take his wife and daughter and accompany Cissie to Genoa, because she kept the Sultan "cheered and tranquil".  She had performed an African dance for the Sultan, and accompanied him on a two-hour drive along the coast. Although the Sultan had previously announced an engagement in Malaya, the lawyer now said that he would inform the Press if and when any marriage were to occur. Such an engagement was not unique in east Kent in the 1930s. George Henry Milles-Lade, 4th Earl Sondes who lived at Sheldwich, married Pamela McDougall on 17 October 1939; she was understood to have been previously a Bluebell Girl.
  The relationship continued, and in 1939 the Sultan was visiting Switzerland for his health, accompanied by Cissie and her mother Florence. Cissie lived at Mayfair Court with her parents and sister, E.F.V. Allchin; she never married and was otherwise known as 
caption: Cissie wearing a cheongsam, 1937
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