Profile of Sir Stamford Raffles - founder of Singapore
Portrait of young Sir Stamford Raffles
Born at sea off the coast of Jamaica, Stamford Raffles would eventually become a well-respected British statesman. When he was 23 he became Penang’s assistant secretary. Positioned in Southeast Asia, he explored the archipelago extensively, writing History of Java in 1817 and founding Singapore in 1819.
Sir Stamford was born at sea, off Port Morant, Jamaica, on July 6, 1781. His father was an improvident merchant captain who was on a homeward bound journey from the West Indies with his wife at the time of birth.
Raffles was raised with his family struggling with debt. At the age of just 14 he was forced to leave school to become a clerk for the East India Company in order to help support his family, which included four sisters. Although his schooling had been inadequate, he studied several languages and the sciences at his own leisure as well as gaining a knowledge in natural history which would see him earn an acclaimed reputation.
He achieved so much notice through his industry that at just 23 years old he was handed the role of assistant secretary to the then recently formed government of Penang, which had been a hitherto inconspicuous island located at the Strait of Malacca’s northern entrance. More on Malacca.
In Penang, which had been established in order to give the UK a foothold in the Netherlands-held East Indies, Raffles formed is career by intensively exploring the language, culture and history of the Malayan peoples sprinkled all over the archipelago’s islands.
This unique research caught the attention of the governor-general of India, Lord Minto, during a period of crisis in which Napoleon was using the island of Java as a base for the destruction of the UK’s dated ships, the Indiamen, on their voyage to China. Determined to rid the French influence from Java, Raffles was appointed Minto’s agent to mark out plans for a naval invasion.
Raffles stands proudly before Singapore
Raffles, handed an independent authority which sparked feelings of jealousy in Penang, established his new headquarters in Malacca. He sailed to Java with Minto, landing on August 6, 1811, without mishap and, following a brief engagement with French-Dutch forces, occupied the island.
Minto awarded considerable credit to Raffles for this success. Having already referred to him as “an able, active, very clever and judicious man”, he began to recognise his administrative and intellectual ability and his humanism. Shortly after, Minto was to sail back to Calcutta, leaving a 30-year-old Raffles to rule an archipelagic empire home to several million people.
Raffles introduced a mass of reforms in order to transform the preceding Dutch colonial system and ensure the native population had better living standards. However, his reforms proved too expensive for a trading company largely concerned with profit and ended up being short-lived. More on Singapore attractions.
His life then took a turn for the worse with his wife dying and himself enduring four-and-a-half years of increasing ill health. Left open to personal attack after the death of Minto, Raffles was recalled to England. He departed the East Indies on 25 March, 1816, considered a liability among the East India Company’s court of directors. He would never regain their complete confidence.
In spite of being a dazzling success in London in both learned and fashionable society, which culminated in his knighthood award and election as a Royal Society fellow, Raffles went on to resume his services in the East in a situation of restricted and reduced authority, as the lieutenant governor of the crumbling, disease-ridden pepper port of Bengkulu on Sumatra’s west coast.
Yet it was from here, as he watched the Indonesian archipelago fall back into the hands of the Dutch and have a complete commercial monopoly policy forced upon it, he made his next move extending British influence in Southeast Asia.
On a journey to Calcutta, which almost ended in shipwreck, Raffles employed his extensive knowledge of eastern affairs as well as his persuasive powers to convince the then-governor of India, Lord Hastings, that forceful and immediate actions was required to safeguard British-Far East trade.
On December 7, 1818, Raffles set sail from Calcutta, bearing the qualified authority of Hastings to try and establish a fortified post towards the Strait of Malacca’s east. This was intended to wedge open the entrance to the China seas. On January 29, 1819, he came to land on a sparsely populated island off Malaya’s southern tip and, in risking likely collision with Dutch forces, established by treaty the port of Singapore. More on history.
Although returning to his Bengkulu post for three years, Raffles went back to Singapore in October 1822, and reorganised his administration’s various branches. His regulations came into effect in January 1823 and stated that “the Port of Singapore is a free port, with trade open to vessels and ships of all nations”.
By treaty of March 17, 1824, the Netherlands relinquished all claim to Singapore. However, for Raffles, it was a period of rapidly deteriorating health when he was experiencing headaches of increasing ferocity. He again set sail for England, this time for the last time, arriving on August 22, 1824.
Back in London, his huge collections of Malayan lore and natural history saw him acclaimed an Orientalist. He later assisted in the founding, and was elected first president of, London Zoo. He died on July 5, 1826, of a brain tumour.
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