Thomas Bingley Popular Books

Thomas Bingley Biography & Facts

Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British colonial official who served as the governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816 and lieutenant-governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. Raffles was involved in the capture of the Indonesian island of Java from the Dutch during the Napoleonic Wars. It was returned under the Anglo–Dutch Treaty of 1814. He also wrote The History of Java in 1817, describing the history of the island from ancient times. Rafflesia flower was named after him. Raffles also played a role in further establishing the British Empire's reach in East and Southeast Asia. He secured control over the strategically located Singapore from local rulers in 1819 to secure British access along the Strait of Singapore and the nearby seas in the region, particularly the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. His actions were initially not endorsed by the British government and led to tensions between the British and the Dutch; war was avoided under the Anglo–Dutch Treaty of 1824 which firmly established their spheres of influence, whereby the Dutch would relinquish its claims to Singapore and the British seceding Bencoolen in Sumatra to the Dutch. An entrepôt was subsequently established in Singapore for maritime trade between Europe and Asia. While Raffles was largely credited for the founding of contemporary Singapore, the early running of day-to-day operations was mostly done by William Farquhar, who served as the first Resident of Singapore from 1819 to 1823. Raffles soon returned to England in 1824, where he died on his birthday in 1826 at the age of 45. His legacy while complex remains significant in Singapore, most notably the Raffles's Landing Site, as well as his name being a common sight in numerous entities and institutions throughout the country. Others have argued against excessive reverence as he was an imperialist who projected colonialism onto the population of Singapore that predated his arrival. Early life Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles was born on (1781-07-05)5 July 1781 on board the ship Ann, off the coast of Port Morant, Jamaica, to Captain Benjamin Raffles (1739, London – 23 November 1811, Deptford) and Anne Raffles (née Lyde) (1755 – 8 February 1824, London). Benjamin served as a ship master for various ships engaged in the direct trade between England and the West Indies. Although some biographers have suggested that Benjamin was involved in the slave trade, modern historians have refuted such claims. When Benjamin ended his involvement in the West India trade in 1800, it caused his family considerable hardship. The little money the family had went into sending the young Raffles to the Mansion House Academy, Hammersmith, a moderately priced boarding school, offering Latin, Greek, French, arithmetic, bookkeeping and geography, that specialised in preparing boys for clerkships or the army. In 1795, at the age of 14, Raffles started working as a clerk in London for the British East India Company, the trading company that shaped many of Britain's overseas conquests. Nine years later, in 1804, the 23-year-old Raffles married Olivia Mariamne Devenish, a widow ten years his senior,: 57, 73, 107  who was formerly married to Jacob Cassivelaun Fancourt, an assistant surgeon in Madras, who had died in 1800.: 59, 69  In 1805, he was sent to Prince of Wales Island, Malaya, starting his long association with Southeast Asia. He started as assistant secretary, under the Honourable Philip Dundas, the new governor of Penang. At this time, he also made the acquaintance of Thomas Otho Travers, who would accompany him for the next twenty years. Java Island British invasion of Java His knowledge of the Malay language, as well as his wit and ability, gained him favour with Lord Minto, the governor-general of India, and he was sent to Malacca. In 1811, after the annexation of the Kingdom of Holland by France during Napoleon's war, Raffles had no choice but to leave the country. He mounted a military expedition against the Dutch and French in Java, in the Dutch East Indies. The war was swiftly conducted by Admiral Robert Stopford, General Frederick Augustus Wetherall, and Colonel Robert Rollo Gillespie, who led a well-organised army against an opposing army of mostly French conscripts with little proper leadership. The previous Dutch governor, Herman Willem Daendels, had built a well-defended fortification at Meester Cornelis (now Jatinegara). His successor, Governor Jan Willem Janssens, who coincidentally had surrendered to the British five years earlier at the Cape Colony, mounted a brave but ultimately futile defence at the fortress. The British, led by Colonel Gillespie, stormed the fort and captured it within three hours. Governor Janssens attempted to escape inland but was captured. The British invasion of Java took a total of forty-five days, during which Raffles was appointed the lieutenant-governor of the Dutch East Indies by Baron Minto before hostilities formally ceased. He took his residence at Buitenzorg, and despite having a small subset of Britons as his senior staff, kept many of the Dutch civil servants in the governmental structure. Rule During the relatively brief British rule in Java, Raffles negotiated peace, and mounted some significant military expeditions against local Javanese princes to subjugate them to British rule. Most significant of these was the assault on Yogyakarta on 21 June 1812. Yogyakarta was one of the two most powerful indigenous polities in Java. During the attack, the Yogyakarta kraton was badly damaged, and extensively looted by British troops. Raffles seized much of the contents of the court archive. The event was unprecedented in Javanese history. It was the first time an indigenous court had been taken by storm by a European army, and the humiliation of the local aristocracy was profound. Although peace returned to Central Java in the immediate aftermath of the British assault, the events may have fuelled the deep-seated instability and hostility to European involvement that ultimately gave rise to the Java War of the 1820s. Raffles also ordered an expedition to Palembang in Sumatra to unseat the local sultan, Mahmud Badaruddin II, and to seize the nearby 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 lieutenant-governorship, Raffles placed some restrictions on the local slave trade in line with wider British policy across its Asian territories, although slavery remained widespread and Raffles himself was served by a large retinue of slaves at his official residences in Java. Raffles also attempted a replacement of the Dutch system of forced agricultural deliveries-in-kind with a cash-based land tenure system of land management, probably influenced by the earlier anti-feudal critiques of Dirk van Hogendorp He was advised by a.... Discover the Thomas Bingley popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Thomas Bingley books.