Singapore’s founding father, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, was a man of genius – a gifted
colonial administrator, linguist and avid student of natural history. Part of his priceless
collection, including beautiful paintings of exotic birds, plants and animals commissioned
during his years in the Far East, have recently been purchased by the British Library and
are now on exhibition at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Heather Ross spoke with
senior curator, Dr Henry Noltie. Images from The British Library.
A
lthough Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles is control of South East Asian trade. Instead, he was
today best remembered as the founding shunted off to the backwater of Bencoolen on Sumatra.
father of modern Singapore, he has also “When his political ambitions were blocked, it was
left an enduring legacy in other areas that the pursuit of natural history that offered him some
underpin his place in history. Fluent in Malay, Raffles solace,” Dr Noltie said. “He gathered around him
was a gifted polymath who had a deep and abiding a team of very capable people including botanists
interest in natural history, a passion for fauna and and artists and together they amassed an immense
flora, which he pursued throughout the 18 years amount of high quality material.”
in which he served British colonial interests in the In 1824 he was to return home aboard the ship
Far East. And yet it’s Raffles extraordinary personal Fame, a vessel that also carried his priceless collection
qualities, his unshakeable evangelical Christian of artefacts, natural history specimens and natural
convictions and his enlightened concern for human history drawings. During the Fame’s first night at sea,
dignity that set him apart from so many others when she was some 60 nautical miles offshore, a
who helped Britannia rule the waves in the early Danish seaman drew a draught of brandy from a keg
nineteenth century. below deck. At the time he was also recklessly puffing
The son of a sea captain, Raffles left school at on a lighted pipe. The resulting explosion shook the
14 and was largely self-taught. He was a man of ship and within minutes she was ablaze from stem to
genius who rose through the ranks of the British stern. Raffles and all the passengers and crew pulled
East India Company, almost entirely on account away to safety in small boats, but the Fame and her
of his own outstanding ability. While many of his precious cargo went down. Dr Noltie describes the
contemporaries turned a blind eye to the evils of passengers’ survival as “an absolute miracle.”
the slave trade, Raffles was a staunch Abolitionist, a Such a disaster would have broken a lesser man,
position that often brought him into conflict with his and yet in Raffles case, it simply served to strengthen
colleagues and the hard-nosed commercial instincts his resolve. “He was an evangelical Christian,” Dr
of the East India Company. Noltie said, “and he had tremendous faith and
In 1816 he left Java and brought home to London determination. He saw this as a divine act and
a shipload of natural history, ethnographic and wrote that ‘it had pleased God to humble him by
antiquarian treasures collected during his time in overwhelming calamity’. On the ensuing Sabbath he
Penang, Java and Malacca. It was a great triumph, but ‘publicly returned thanks to Almighty God for having
fate was to deal Raffles many a cruel blow. During preserved the lives of all those who had for some
his second stint in the Far East, the six years (1818- time contemplated the death which there appeared
1824) in which he served as Lieutenant Governor of no human possibility of escaping.’
Fort Marlborough, the British East India Company’s “This underscores the fact that Raffles valued
trading base at Bencoolen on the west coast of human life over and above his precious collection.
Sumatra, Raffles lost his first wife and four of their His widow later wrote that it ‘seemed to have no other
five children to the ravages of tropical diseases. He effect than to rouse him to greater exertion.’ When
also lost two of his botanists, William Jack, son of the they made it back to Bencoolen, Raffles immediately
Principal of Aberdeen University and Joseph Arnold, set about commissioning replacements. The natural
a medical graduate of Edinburgh University. history painters were still there and they had just 10
Dr Henry Noltie, RBGE’s Researcher of Historic weeks to prepare whatever they could before the next
Collections and Archives, the author of a new book vessel was due to sail for London. There had been
on Raffles and curator of the Raffles exhibition in between two and three thousand natural history
Edinburgh, said internal British East India Company drawings onboard the Fame so there was no way they
politics thwarted Raffles’ desire to become Governor could replicate all of those. In those 10 frantic weeks
of Penang, a position in which he hoped to have a the best they could manage was to replace about 80.
formal role in negotiations with the Dutch over the Thirty of them will be in our exhibition. I suspect the
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