Stamford Raffles

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas Stamford Raffles.
Enlarge
Thomas Stamford Raffles.

Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (July 6, 1781 – July 5, 1826) was the founder of the city of Singapore (now the Republic of Singapore), and is one of the most famous Britons who expanded the British Empire.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Raffles was born on the ship Ann off the coast of Jamaica. Little is known of Raffles' parents. His father, Captain Benjamin Raffles, was involved in the slave trade in the Caribbean, and died suddenly when Raffles was fourteen, leaving his family in debt. The younger Raffles immediately started working as a clerk in London for the British East India Company, the quasi-government trading company that shaped many of Britain's overseas conquests. In 1805 he was sent to what is now Penang in the country of Malaysia, then called Prince of Wales Island, starting a long association with southeast Asia.

[edit] Java

His knowledge of the Malay language as well as his wit and ability gained him favour with Lord Minto, governor of India, and he was sent, first to Malacca, then, in 1811, after the annexation of Kingdom of Holland by France, mounted a military expedition against the Dutch in Java. The war was swiftly conducted by Admiral Robert Stopford, General Wetherhall, and Colonel Gillespie, who led a well organized army against an army of mostly French conscripts with little proper leadership. The previous Dutch governor, Herman Willem Daendels, built a well-defended fortification at Meester Cornelis (now Jatinegara), and at the time, the governor, Jan Willem Janssens (who, coincidentally, surrendered to the British at the Cape Colony), mounted a brave but ultimately frivolous defence at the fortress. The English, led by Colonel Gillespie, stormed the fort and captured it within three hours. Janssens attempted to escape inland but was captured. The British invasion of Java took a total of forty-five days, with Raffles appointed the Lieutenant-Governor by Lord Minto before hostilities formally ceased. He took his residence at Buitenzorg and despite having a small subset of Englishmen as his senior staff, he kept many of the Dutch civil servants in the governmental structure. He also negotiated peace and mounted some small military expeditions against local princes to subjugate them to British rule, as well a takeover of Bangka Island to set up a permanent British presence in the area in the case of the return of Java to Dutch rule after the end of the War of the Sixth Coalition in Europe.

During his governorship, Raffles introduced partial self-government, stopped the slave trade, became an early opponent of the Opium trade by placing strict limitations upon its importation, much to the dismay of Calcutta, led an expedition to rediscover and restore Borobudur and other ancient monuments, and replaced the Dutch forced agriculture system with a Land tenure system of land management, probably influenced by the earlier writings of Dirk van Hogendorp. He also changed the Dutch colonies to the British system of driving on the left.[citation needed]

The statue of Sir Stamford Raffles by Thomas Woolner in Singapore
Enlarge
The statue of Sir Stamford Raffles by Thomas Woolner in Singapore

In 1815, he left again for England after the island of Java was returned to control of the Netherlands following the Napoleonic Wars. In 1817, Raffles wrote and published a book entitled History of Java, describing the history of the island from ancient times. In 1817 he was knighted by the prince regent. He came back to the island of Sumatra in 1818, and on 29 January 1819, he established a free-trade post at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula — a site that became Singapore. This was an audacious move, against the British policy of not offending the Dutch in a zone conceded to be a Dutch sphere of influence. In six weeks, several hundred traders appeared to take advantage of the no-tax policy, and Raffles gained retrospective approval from London.

Raffles declared the foundation of what was to become modern Singapore on 6 February of that year, securing transfer of control of the island to the East India Company. He was also responsible for the Raffles Plan of Singapore and a school called the Singapore Institution which as the Raffles Institution is a premier secondary school. By the time he left the country in 1823, the city was on its way to becoming the largest port in the world. It continues to thrive as a low tax trading hub.

Raffles was also a founder (in 1825) and first president (elected April 1826) of the Zoological Society of London and the London Zoo. Sadly many of the specimens he collected were lost when the ship on which he returned to England, the Fame, caught fire and sank. He was particularly keen on the strange animal the tapir.

He died in London, England, a day before his forty-fifth birthday, on July 5, 1826, of apoplexy. In many ways he had a tragic personal life in the east - losing his first wife in Java and three of his children in Bencoolen. Because of his anti-slavery stance, he was refused burial inside his local parish church (St. Mary's, Hendon) by the vicar, whose family had made its money in the slave trade. When the church was extended in the 1920s his tomb was incorporated into the body of the building.

[edit] Coat of Arms

The Blazon of his Armorial Ensigns reads:

"Or a double headed Eagle displayed Gules charged on the breast with an Eastern Crown on the first, on a Chief Vert pendednt from a chain two oval Medallions in Pale the one bearing Arabic characters and the other a dagger in fess the blade wavy the point towards the dexter in relief Or, the said medallions and chain being a representation of a personal deocration called the Order of the Golden Sword conferred upon by him by the Chief or King of Atcheen in Sumatra as a mark of the high regard of the said King and in testimony of the good understanding which had been happily established between that Prince and the British Government; and for a crest out of an Eastern Crown Or a Gryphon's Head Purpure gorged with a collar gemel Gold."

The Coat of Arms has become the school crest of Raffles Institution, and subsequently Raffles Junior College (Auspicium Melioris Aevi, the school motto, in Latin means "Hope of a Better Age"). It can also be found as part of a stained-glass window in the St. Andrew's Cathedral.

[edit] Legacy

In Singapore and in other parts of the world, his name lives on in numerous entities, including:

[edit] Biology

[edit] Buildings

[edit] Business

  • Raffles Holdings
  • Raffles International Patients Centre
  • Raffles International Training Centre
  • Raffles Investments Limited
  • Raffles Medical Group
  • Raffles Tailor
  • Yantai Raffles Shipyard
  • Raffles Class of Singapore Airlines

[edit] Education

[edit] Sports and recreation

  • Raffles Country Club
  • Raffles Cup
  • Raffles Marina
  • Raffles Town Club

[edit] Transport

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

  • Biography at the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../s/t/a/Stamford_Raffles_176a.html"