Sir Stamford Raffles
The Founder of Singapore established his city on principles of free people and free trade.
1781-1826
King George III 1760-1820
The Founder of Singapore established his city on principles of free people and free trade.
1781-1826
King George III 1760-1820
Sir Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) is well-known to anyone who has visited Singapore, the city he founded in 1819. Still held in honour there, he is much less widely remembered back in his own country, but deserves better from us for his pioneering campaigns against slavery in the Far East and for being a champion of free trade in a world dominated by gunboat diplomacy.
abridged
IN 1795, fourteen-year-old Thomas Stamford Raffles went out to clerk for the East India Company in their little enclaves at Penang and Bencoolen in the Dutch East Indies. His career flourished, thanks to his fluency in Malay and sincere love for the region. In 1808 he persuaded the British authorities to commit to Malacca, which they planned to abandon;* in 1811, during the Napoleonic Wars, he prevailed on them to annexe Java from the Dutch — a severe blow to the French, who had occupied the Netherlands. He served in Java as governor until 1814, when the Dutch were liberated and their island was handed back.*
His reward was a knighthood and appointment as Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen in 1817. Soon he was making history again. In gratitude for his aid in ousting a usurper and recovering his crown, on February 6, 1819, the Sultan of Johor granted Raffles a tiny fishing village called Singapore.* Within months roads were laid, Malay traders were prospering, and ports were thrown open to merchants of all nations without prejudice.
See Raffles and the Reprieve of Malacca. Penang and Malacca are in Malaysia today, on the west coast of the long, slim Malay peninsula. The island of Singapore, a sovereign republic and city state, lies just off the southern tip. Bencoolen is now Bengkulu on the island of Sumatra to the west, one of the Sunda Islands in western Indonesia. See Google Maps.
This abruptly ended Raffles’s dream of making Java the centre of a network of British free-trade connections throughout the Far East, and in particular the base for free trade with Japan. See A Highly Polished People.
Today, Singapore covers some 280 square miles, and has a population of 5.6 milion. In 2019 it was declared the world’s most competitive economy: see CNBC. In 2018, Singapore ranked No. 2 in the world for liberty: see Daniel J. Mitchell/FEE. This small sovereign state puts giant superpowers in the shade by maintaining Raffles’s vision.