Article

‘Raffles reviewed – Sir Stamford Raffles 175 years later’. An exhibition organized by the National Museum of Singapore commemorating Raffles’ landing at Singapore on the evening of the 28th January 1819

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

‘Raffles reviewed – Sir Stamford Raffles 175 years later’. An exhibition organized by the National Museum of Singapore commemorating Raffles’ landing at Singapore on the evening of the 28th January 1819

Eli Solomon’s 1994 article documents the “Raffles Reviewed – Sir Stamford Raffles 175 Years Later” exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore, which commemorated the 175th anniversary of Raffles’ landing on 28 January 1819. The piece functions as both a detailed catalogue of the exhibition’s holdings—drawn from the British Museum, India Office Library, and private collections—and a brief narrative of the founding of Singapore, supplemented by accounts of two lectures delivered by the Raffles scholar Dr. John Bastin.

Summary

The exhibition, opened on 29 January 1994 by Singapore’s Minister for Information and the Arts, presented a chronological storyboard of Raffles’ career from his appointment as Assistant Secretary to Governor Phillip Dundas in Penang in 1805 through to the sinking of the ship Fame off Bengkulu in 1824. Solomon notes that a disproportionate amount of material covered the British occupation of Java (1811–1816), reflecting the fact that Java’s conquest constituted Raffles’ “first and greatest challenge.” The main gallery at the Cendana Gallery displayed personal artifacts—Lady Raffles’ strong box, a gold snuff box presented before their 1817 marriage, three hard-stone and silver-gilt seals bearing the Raffles armorial bearings, and strands of Raffles’ hair—while the Fort Canning Site concentrated on manuscripts and maps relating to his life in the East.

The article’s most substantial contribution is its itemized listing of the British Museum’s “Raffles Collection” (Javanese antiquities, original drawings for the engravings in History of Java, gamelan sets, puppets, masks, and ethnographic objects), the India Office Library’s holdings (the Raffles writing desk, the EIC Charter facsimile, the Horsfield and Mackenzie drawing collections, and the “Raffles Family Collection” of 50 Malay letters from native rulers during the 1810–1811 preparations for the Java expedition), and a series of private-collection items including a presentation keris, a George IV pattern cutlery set dated London 1824, and a despatch box engraved with Raffles’ name. Solomon also records new biographical details revealed by Dr. Bastin, including the location of Raffles’ first christening aboard the 90-gun Princess Royal, the Raffles family residence at Walworth, and evidence that Olivia Raffles had an illegitimate child born in early 1792 from an affair with the captain of the vessel Rose.

The appendix provides a concise reconstruction of the January 1819 voyage, tracing the departure of the 375-ton Indiana from Penang on 19 January, the rendezvous of eight vessels off the Karimun Islands on the evening of 27 January, the anchoring off Singapore’s “fine sandy beach” by 4 p.m. on 28 January, and the signing of the five-article preliminary agreement with Temenggong Abdul Rahman on 30 January, which was superseded by the more comprehensive treaty of 6 February 1819 signed by Raffles, Temenggong Abdul Rahman, and Tunku Long (acknowledged as Sultan Husain Muhammad Shah).

Key Findings

  • The Indiana, a 375-ton merchant vessel registered in Calcutta, departed Penang on 19 January 1819 accompanied by the schooner Enterprise; the full fleet of eight vessels anchored off Singapore by 4 p.m. on 28 January 1819 (pp. 92–93).
  • The preliminary five-article agreement with Temenggong Abdul Rahman was signed on 30 January 1819; the definitive treaty of friendship and alliance was signed on 6 February 1819 by Raffles, Temenggong Abdul Rahman, and Tunku Long (pp. 93–94).
  • The “Raffles Family Collection” in the India Office Library comprises 50 letters in Malay from native rulers during the 1810–1811 Java expedition preparations, 23 further letters between Indonesian rulers (1782–1824), and 2 letters in Balinese on palm-leaf from Buleleng (p. 86).
  • The British Museum’s Raffles Collection includes two gamelan sets acquired during the Java occupation; the larger set was likely obtained during the capture of the Yogyakarta kraton in the third week of June 1812 and was presented to the Museum in 1859 by William Charles Raffles Flint (p. 82, n. 1).
  • Dr. Bastin identified Raffles’ first christening as taking place aboard the 90-gun Princess Royal approximately twenty days after his birth, and established that the Raffles parents resided at Walworth, across the Thames from his cousin the Revd. Thomas Raffles at Princess Street, Spitalfields (p. 89).
  • The treaty of 1 August 1812 between Sultan Hamengkubuwana III of Yogyakarta and the British Government of Java, represented by Raffles, was negotiated by Yogya Resident John Crawfurd between 15–17 July 1812 and signed at Semarang (p. 91, n. 19).

Conclusion

Solomon’s article serves primarily as a record of a significant moment in Singapore’s cultural history—the first time that Raffles’ personal artifacts and associated manuscripts had been assembled and displayed in Singapore since his own lifetime. The underlying historical takeaway, reinforced by both the exhibition’s curatorial choices and Bastin’s lectures, is that Raffles’ legacy is inseparable from the British occupation of Java, which shaped his administrative philosophy, his naturalist interests, and ultimately the strategic logic behind the founding of Singapore as a counterweight to Dutch territorial ambitions in the region.

Context

  • The article draws on the British Museum’s Raffles Collection, the India Office Library’s Raffles Family Collection and Raffles-Minto Collection, the Horsfield and Mackenzie drawing collections, and several private collections; microfilm copies of key documents are noted as available at the University of Malaya (pp. 82–91).
  • The piece contributes to Raffles historiography by documenting the physical dispersal of his papers and artifacts across institutional collections and by recording new biographical findings from Dr. John Bastin’s ongoing research, particularly regarding Raffles’ early family life and the circumstances surrounding his first marriage.

References