Raffles of Java, 1781-1826
Administrator, Orientalist, patron of science and founder of Singapore, Raffles was an enlightened Governor of Java during the British occupation, 1811-1816.
Singapore has obscured the real greatness of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles. The hotel, the quay, the square, the museum, the college, the light-house and the monument are all reminders that it was he who in 1819 selected this site of the ancient Malayan city of Singapore as a British settlement. But Raffles’ principal field of activity as scientist, governor, historian and humanitarian was in Java. It was Java that absorbed the liveliest and the most ambitious years of his short life —he was only forty-five when he died at Hendon in 1826. Java inspired him to become the first modern colonial governor. He was also the first European to appreciate and to describe the aesthetic values of Javanese civilization.
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