Charles Vyner Brooke
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| Charles Vyner Brooke | ||
|---|---|---|
| White Rajah of Sarawak | ||
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| Reign | May 24, 1917 – July 1, 1946 | |
| Full name | Charles Vyner deWindt Brooke | |
| Born | 30 September 1874 | |
| Died | 9 May 1963 | |
| Predecessor | Charles Anthoni Johnson Brooke | |
| Successor | (Anthony Walter Dayrell Brooke: claim renounced) | |
| Consort | Sylvia Brett | |
| Royal House | White Rajahs | |
| Father | Charles Anthoni Johnson Brooke | |
| Mother | Margaret Alice Lili de Windt | |
The Rajah of Sarawak, Sir Charles Vyner deWindt Brooke GCMG (September 26, 1874–May 9, 1963) was the third and final White Rajah of Sarawak.
The Third Rajah spent his youth in the Sarawak public service before travelling to England, where he was educated at Clevedon, Winchester, and Magdalene College, Cambridge. It was in England that he met and married The Hon. Sylvia Brett, daughter of Lord Esher, on February 21, 1911 and returned to Sarawak with her.
Following the death of his father, the second Rajah, Charles Anthoni Johnson Brooke, Brooke was proclaimed Rajah of Sarawak on May 24, 1917. Brooke's early years as Rajah saw a boom in the Sarawak rubber and oil industries and the subsequent rise in the Sarawak economy allowed Brooke to modernise Sarawak institutions, including the public service and introduced a penal code developed on British India lines in 1924.
Granted a knighthood in 1927, Brooke continued to run a hands off and relatively popular administration that banned Christian missionaries and fostered indigenous traditions (to an extent; cannibalism was outlawed). Sarawak however was not immune to Japanese imperial ambition, which manifested itself in Sarawak on December 25, 1941. Reading the signs, Brooke had already evacuated his family and himself to Sydney, Australia, where he would remain for the duration of the war.
Brooke returned to Sarawak on April 15, 1946 and temporarily resumed as Rajah, until July 1, 1946 when he ceded Sarawak to the British government as a crown colony, thus ending White Rajah rule in Sarawak.
Vyner Brooke died in London at No. 13, Albion Street, Bayswater, W2 on May 9, 1963, four months before Sarawak was formally incorporated into the Federation of Malaysia.
All three white Rajah's are buried in St Leonard's Church in the village of Sheepstor on Dartmoor.
He was survived by three daughters:
- Dayang Leonora Margaret, Countess of Inchcape, wife of 2nd Earl of Inchcape and, secondly of Colonel Francis Parker Tompkins.
- Dayang Elizabeth, a singer and actress, wife of Harry Roy.
- Dayang Nancy Valerie, married, firstly, Robert Gregory, an American wrestler, secondly, Senor José Pepi Cabarro, thirdly, Andrew Aitken Macnair.
| Preceded by Charles Johnson Brooke |
Rajah of Sarawak 1917–1946 |
Succeeded by (Anthony Walter Dayrell Brooke) (claim renounced) |
