Raffles, Sir Thomas Stamford (1781-1826), a British colonial administrator, was the founder of modern Singapore. Singapore was then a thinly inhabited island, but Raffles recognized its potential importance to trade. Today, it is one of the world’s busiest ports.
Raffles was born on July 6, 1781, on the merchant ship Ann off Port Morant in Jamaica. He entered the service of a British trading company called the East India Company at the age of 14. The company sent him to Penang, Malaya (now Malaysia), in 1805 as an assistant secretary.
In 1811, Raffles accompanied a British military expedition to the island of Java (now part of Indonesia). The Dutch had controlled Java until Emperor Napoleon I of France annexed the kingdom of Holland in 1810. The British, who were at war with Napoleon, occupied Java without a struggle. They appointed Raffles lieutenant governor. In that post, he abolished forced labor and introduced trial by jury and other reforms. The United Kingdom returned Java to Dutch control in 1816, and Raffles went back to England. There, he wrote a two-volume History of Java (1817) and received a knighthood.
Raffles returned to Asia in 1818, serving as lieutenant governor of Bengkulu, Sumatra (now part of Indonesia), from 1818 to 1824. In 1819, he signed a treaty with Temenggong Abdul Rahman, the local chief of Singapore, and Sultan Hussein, the ruler of Johor (now part of Malaysia). The treaty gave the British East India Company rights to establish a trading station on Singapore and helped to limit Dutch influence in the area. By making Singapore a duty-free port, Raffles attracted ships wishing to exchange cargo. Singapore became a thriving center of trade.
Raffles was one of the few Europeans of his time to study the Malay language, history, and culture. A noted naturalist, he founded the London Zoological Society in April 1826. He died on July 5, 1826.
See also East India Company; Java; Singapore (History).
