Tales of Colonial Derring-do
The relationship
between Sir Stamford Raffles and William Farquhar was close, rivalrous and
ultimately bitter
Sir Stamford Raffles
gets all the good press. Somehow the name helps, suggesting a winning
combination of raffish and ruffled. And the co-founder of Singapore and founder
of London Zoo, as Victoria Glendinning’s fine new biography Raffles:
And the Golden Opportunity makes clear, was an attractive and
charismatic figure who achieved much in a short life blighted by tropical
illness. One of the brightest lights of the East India Company, he was a firm
opponent of slavery and managed to combine colonial derring-do with serious
botanical and zoological research – a cross between Cecil Rhodes and Gerald
Durrell.
The other co-founder
of Singapore, William Farquhar, gets a less good press, partly perhaps because
he had a name that is far more difficult to spell and pronounce and less likely
to be given to a hotel, a nightclub or a street. The relationship between
Raffles and Farquhar was close, rivalrous and ultimately bitter. The two
employees of the East India Company collaborated on one of the most successful
acts of colonial settlement in history and shared (like many Company men) an
intense and active interest in natural history; but Raffles, who praised
Farquhar’s good nature and “warm and ... kind heart”, ended up stabbing him in
the back, dismissing him from his post as Resident of Singapore without proper
justification, blackening his character and taking credit for several of his
zoological discoveries. Farquhar never forgave this betrayal, and spent much
time and energy in later life trying to set the record straight, claiming at
least equal responsibility for the foundation of Singapore.
Raffles’ and
Farquhar’s great adventure and colonial success came in January and February
1819, when in the space of nine days they set up the trading post that would
become one of the world’s most successful cities. Here at least they worked
harmoniously on choice of site (though later they would argue on who had
suggested Singapore first) and negotiations with local rulers, particularly the
splendidly named Temenggong of Johor. Raffles obviously trusted Farquhar at
this point, because after the founding ceremony he sailed off to Sumatra,
leaving Farquhar in charge.
Singapore thrived
under what James Matheson (later co-founder of Jardine Matheson) called “the
mild sway” of Major Farquhar. Farquhar certainly had reason to be proud of the
development of the settlement. “Nothing can possibly exceed,” he wrote
exultantly in March 1820, “the rising trade and general prosperity of this
infant colony.” The population of Singapore reached 6,000 in 1821 and 12,000 by
1823.
The tensions that
arose between Raffles and Farquhar when Raffles returned to Singapore in 1822,
and resulted in Farquhar’s summary dismissal from the post of Resident, were
partly caused by disagreements over style of administration. Farquhar had a
“native wife”, the half-Malay Nonya Clemaine by whom he had six children, whom
he supported even when he returned to Scotland and married a younger bride. He
was thus embedded in Malay society in a way that Raffles, for all his mastery
of the language, never was. His “mild sway” included the toleration – among the
native though not the European population – of the opium trade and of slavery.
In one way, despite
his unfair treatment at the hands both of Raffles and of posterity, Farquhar
was fortunate. He managed to preserve the most enchanting and appropriate
monument, for a man who made himself widely loved and appreciated in a far-off
place, and had the intensest interest in its flora and fauna. That monument
consists of his collection of 477 natural history drawings, commissioned from
unnamed Chinese artists when he was Resident of Melaka from 1795 to 1818,
brought by him to Singapore and then on to London. Unlike the greater part of
the collection of his rival Raffles, which was burnt in a ship fire, the collection
survived these perilous journeys; in 1826 Farquhar donated it to the Royal
Asiatic Society in London. The drawings remained with the society, which loaned
six of the eight volumes to the Natural History Museum, until 1993 when the
collection was sold to the Singapore stockbroker Goh Geok Khim, who presented
it to the National Museum of Singapore.
For those who cannot
make it to Singapore to see the originals, there is a two-volume folio by
Editions Didier Millet – quite the loveliest book I have had the luck to leaf
through in the past 12 months. The coloured drawings are captivating in their
combination of Chinese nature painting tradition and a more scientific European
approach.
I especially like the
Malayan tapir, a species Farquhar discovered and a specimen of which he kept as
a pet. He praised its “mild and gentle disposition” (maybe not so different
from his own) and sympathetically noted that “it seemed very susceptible of
cold”.
The collection of
drawings is not just a personal memorial but a reminder of the scientific
research and interests fostered by the East India Company; of a time when
commercial development and ecological care went hand in hand
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