Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T16:06:24.309Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Development of British Commercial and Political Networks in the Straits Settlements 1800 to 1868: The Rise of a Colonial and Regional Economic Identity?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2010

ANTHONY WEBSTER
ANTHONY WEBSTER*
Affiliation:
Liverpool John Moores University, School of Social Science, 68 Hope Street, Liverpool, L1 9BZ Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines the growth of the British commercial communities in the Straits Settlements in the first half of the nineteenth century. It describes how they emerged as a coherent commercial and political interest group, separate from the Indian empire, with their own network of allies and commercial partners in Britain. As such, the Straits merchants emerged as a significant political lobby in their own right. It contends that in the process, they revived earlier notions of Southeast Asia as a discrete geographical region, in which political and ethnic diversity was bridged by the flourishing of maritime commercial networks.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , July 2011 , pp. 899 - 929
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Minutes of Meeting at Boustead's Office, 31 January 1868, CO/273/24 (Colonial Office Records for Malaya) p. 189

2 SSA to the Colonial Office 22 April 1868, CO/273/24 p. 199.

3 Read to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 9 May 1868, CO/273/25 p. 423.

4 Emmerson, D. K. (1984). ‘“Southeast Asia”: What's in a Name?’ Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 15:1, 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Emmerson, ‘“Southeast Asia”: What's in a Name?’ p. 5; Sardesai, D. R. (1989). Southeast Asia: Past and Present (Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2nd edn), pp. 3–5Google Scholar; Hall, D. G. E. (1968). A History of Southeast Asia (Macmillan, London, 3rd edn), p. 3Google Scholar.

6 Kratoska, P. H., Raben, R. and Nordholt, H. S. ‘Locating Southeast Asia’ in Kratoska, , Raben, & Nordholt, (eds), (2005). Locating Southeast Asia: Geographies of Knowledge & Politics of Space (Singapore University Press, Singapore), pp. 1–19Google Scholar.

7 Emmerson, ‘“Southeast Asia”: What's in a Name?’, p. 21.

8 Williams, L. E. (1977). Southeast Asia: A History (Oxford UP, New York), p. 4Google Scholar.

9 Reid, A. (1988) Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450–1680 (Yale UP, New Haven), pp. 6–8Google Scholar.

10 Yong, Tan Tai, ‘Singapore's Story: A Port City in Search of Hinterlands’, in Graf, A. and Huat, Chua Beng (eds), (2009). Port Cities in Asia and Europe (Routledge, Oxford), pp. 207–219Google Scholar.

11 Sutherland, H. (2003). Southeast Asian History and the Mediterranean Analogy, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 34:1, 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 McVey, Ruth T. (2005). ‘Afterword: In praise of the Coelacanth's Cousin’, in Kratoska, Raben & Nordholt (eds), Locating Southeast Asia pp. 308–319, especially p. 317.

13 Light negotiated with the Sultan of Kedah to secure Penang for the East India Company. See Bassett, D.K. ‘British commercial and strategic interest in the Malay Peninsula during the late eighteenth century’ in Bassett, D.K. (1971). British Trade and Policy in Indonesia and Malaysia in the Late Eighteenth Century (University of Hull, Hull) pp. 50–71Google Scholar.

14 Webster, A. (1998). Gentlemen Capitalists: British Imperialism in South East Asia 1770–1890 (Tauris, London), pp. 40–41Google Scholar.

15 Hussin, N. (2007). Trade and Society in the Straits of Melaka: Dutch Melaka and English Penang, 1780–1830 (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen), p. 100Google Scholar.

16 Wurtzburg, C. K. (1984). Raffles of the Eastern Isles (Oxford UP, Singapore—reprint), p. 58, 68–80Google Scholar.

17 Hussin, Trade and Society, pp. 108–109; Webster, A. (1995). British Expansion in South-east Asia and the Role of Robert Farquhar, Lieutenant-Governor of Penang, 1804–5, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 23:1, 1–25, especially p. 17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Webster, A. (1987).‘British Export Interests in Bengal and Imperial Expansion into South-east Asia, 1780 to 1824: The Origins of the Straits Settlements’, in Ingham, B. and Simmons, C. (eds), Development Studies and Colonial Policy (Cass, London), pp. 138–174Google Scholar.

19 Webster, Gentlemen Capitalists, pp. 83–105.

20 Tripathi, A. (1979). Trade and Finance in the Bengal Presidency 1793–1833 (Oxford UP, Calcutta), pp. 157–207Google Scholar.

21 Turnbull, C. M. (1977). A History of Singapore (Oxford UP, Oxford), pp. 35–36Google Scholar.

22 Knight, G. R (1975). John Palmer and Plantation Development in Western Java in the Early Nineteenth Century, Bijdragen, 131:2/3, 309–337Google Scholar.

23 Webster, A. (2007). The Richest East India Merchant: The Life and Business of John Palmer of Calcutta 1767–1836 (Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge), Chapter 5Google Scholar.

24 Webster, The Richest East India Merchant, p. 62; Hussin, Trade and Society, pp. 308–315.

25 Webster, The Richest East India Merchant, p. 96.

26 Undated minute of Governor Bannerman of Penang, Dutch records, 1/2/29, OIOC, BL.

27 Webster, Gentlemen Capitalists, p. 73.

28 Webster, The Richest East India Merchant, pp. 98–102.

29 Webster, Gentlemen Capitalists, pp. 87–88, 101.

30 Webster, The Richest East India Merchant, p. 103.

31 Ibid., p. 102.

32 Hussin, Trade and Society, pp. 322–326.

33 Turnbull, A History of Singapore, pp. 35–36.

34 Wong, Lin Ken, (1960). The Trade of Singapore 1819–69, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 33:4, 11–301Google Scholar.

35 Webster, Gentlemen Capitalists, p. 124.

36 Turnbull, C. M. (1972). The Straits Settlements 1826–67: Indian Presidency to Crown Colony (Athlone Press, London), p. 316Google Scholar.

37 Turnbull, The Straits Settlements 1826–67, pp. 134–135.

38 Ibid., pp. 131–132.

39 Trocki, C. A. (2006). Singapore: Wealth, Power and the Culture of Control (Routledge, London), pp. 44–45Google Scholar.

40 Bickers, R. (1998). Shanghailanders: The Formation and Identity of the British Settler Community in Shanghai 1843–1937, Past and Present, 159, 161–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Singapore Free Press (SFP), 26 August, 1853.

42 SFP, 9 June 1842, on the riots of that year.

43 Trocki, Singapore: Wealth, Power and the Culture, pp. 86–92.

44 Ray, Rajat Kanta (1995). Asian Capital in the Age of European Domination: The Rise of the Bazaar 1800–1914, Modern Asian Studies, 29:3, 449–554, especially p. 466CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Frost, M. R. (2005). Emporium in Imperio: Nanyang Networks and the Straits Chinese in Singapore, 1819–1914, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 36:1, 29–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Heng, Tan Kim, (1981). Chinese Sugar Planting and Social Mobility in Nineteenth Century Province Wellesley, Malaysia in History, 24, 24–38, especially p. 30Google Scholar; Ray, Asian Capital, p. 504; Petition to House of Commons by Singapore merchants on pepper duties, December 1847, Boards Collections F/4/2268 (115434), pp. 7–8.

47 Report on the tin mines at Malacca, 29 April 1851. Boards Collections F/4/2502 (142029), pp. 7–31, 20–22.

48 Trocki, C. A. (1987), The Rise of Singapore's Great Opium Syndicate 1840–1886, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 18:1, 58–80, especially p. 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Trocki, C. A. (1990). Opium and Empire: Chinese Society in Colonial Singapore 1800–1910 (Cornell UP, Ithaca), pp. 82–116Google Scholar.

50 Hollen Lees, Lynn (2009). Being British in Malaya, 1890–1940, Journal of British Studies, 48:1, 76–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Hollen Lees, Being British in Malaya, p. 78; see also Harper, T., (2002). ‘Empire, Diaspora and the Languages of Globalism, 1850–1914’ in Hopkins, A. G. (ed.), Globalization in World History (Pimlico, London 2002), pp. 141–166Google Scholar.

52 Yukihisa Kumagai, (2008). The Lobbying Activities of Provincial Mercantile and Manufacturing Interests against the Renewal of the East India Company's Charter, 1812–13 and 1829–1833 (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Glasgow).

53 Report of a Committee of the Liverpool East India Association appointed to take into consideration the Restrictions on the East India trade—Presented to the Association at a General Meeting 9 May 1822, Liverpool Record Office H380.6EAS.

54 See Webster, A. (2006). The Strategies and Limits of Gentlemanly Capitalism: The London East India Agency Houses, Provincial Commercial Interests, and the Evolution of British Economic Policy in South and South East Asia 1800–50, Economic History Review, 59:4, 743–764CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Nish, I. (1962). British Mercantile Co-operation in the India-China Trade from the End of the East India Company's Trading Monopoly, Journal of Southeast Asian History, 3:2, 74–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Resident Councillor at Malacca, J. Ferrier to Governor of the Straits Settlements 25 October 1853, Boards Collections F/4/2604 (163062), pp. 3–9.

57 Turnbull, The Straits Settlements, p. 327.

58 Kumagai, The Lobbying Activities of Provincial Mercantile and Manufacturing Interests, pp. 139–140.

59 Thomas Boothman, Secretary to the Manchester Chamber of Commerce to the Glasgow East India Association (GEIA) 21 November 1835, Glasgow East India Association papers, Mitchell Library, Glasgow, MS891001/7, p. 27; London East India and China Association (LEICA) to GEIA 10 October 1836, MS891001/7, p. 79, GEIA papers.

60 LEICA to GEIA 23 February 1838 MS891001/8, p. 60.

61 George Waller, Penang to GEIA 15 October 1840 MS891001/9, p. 63.

62 LEICA 14th Annual Report 1850, pp. 8–9.

63 Trocki, Opium and Empire, pp. 59–63.

64 Wong, Lin Ken, (1978). Singapore: Its Growth as an Entrepôt port 1819–1941, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 9:1, 50–84, especially p. 54Google Scholar.

65 C. R. Read, Hamilton, Fox and Boustead to Sir Charles Metcalfe, 25 May 1835 (with enclosed petition from Singapore merchants), Boards Collections F/4/1724, pp. 83–87.

66 Wong, Lin Ken, (1960). The Trade of Singapore 1819–69, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 33:4, 11–301, especially p. 182Google Scholar.

67 Buckley, C. (1902). An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore Vol 1 (Fraser and Neave, Singapore), pp. 313–314Google Scholar.

68 LEICA to GEIA 25 August 1836, India Board to GEIA 26 August 1836, MS891001/7, pp. 73–74.

69 Government of India to the Court of Directors 7 February 1838 BCF/4/1903 (81155), pp. 3–5.

70 Government of India to Court of Directors 18 July 1838, p. 25.

71 LEICA to the Court of Directors 23 May 1838 (enclosing Crawfurd's memorandum) Boards Collections F/4/1905 (81167), pp. 1–41.

72 SFP 19 April 1838; 3 May 1838 and 31 May 1838.

73 Government of India to Court of Directors 20 April 1840 Boards Collections F/4/1903 (81155), pp. 137–152, especially pp. 143–144.

74 Singapore Chamber of Commerce to GEIA, 6 November 1845 MS891001/10, p. 60.

75 Buckley, An Anecdotal History, p. 380.

76 Ibid., p. 398.

77 Ibid., p. 401.

78 Ibid., p. 566.

79 Case of Ashton & Others vs Bauer and others, Singapore 25 October 1866, in Kyshe, J. W. N. (1885). Cases Heard and Determined in Her Majesty's Supreme Court of the Straits Settlements 1808–1884 (Singapore & Straits Printing Office, Singapore), pp. 164–165Google Scholar.

80 Kyshe, Cases Heard, p. 566.

81 Ibid., p. 567.

82 Buchanan vs Kirby, Singapore 8 April 1870, in Kyshe, Cases Heard, pp. 230–231.

83 Turnbull, The Straits Settlements, p. 328.

84 Scott, Sinclair & Co. vs Brown & Co., Penang 26 October 1852, in Kyshe, Cases Heard, pp. 85–87.

85 Extract of a Public Letter from the Government of Bengal (with enclosures) 26 February 1840 Boards Collections F/4/1938 (83888), pp. 1–13

86 Government of India to the Court of Directors 20 December 1841, Boards Collections F/4/1938 (84051), pp. 3–29.

87 Ibid., pp. 13–15.

88 Government of India to the Court of Directors 21 September 1844, Boards Collections F/4/2097 (98067) pp. 1–3.

89 Clark to the Glasgow East India Association, 26 September 1840 MS891001/8, p. 60.

90 Government of Bengal to the Court of Directors, 1 March 1848 Boards Collections F/4/2268 (115434), pp. 1–9.

91 Turnbull, The Straits Settlements, pp. 319–322.

92 Hussin, Trade and Society in the Straits of Melaka, pp. 322–323.

93 Ibid., pp. 221–224.

94 J. Ferrier, Resident Councillor at Malacca to the Governor of the Straits, 17 December 1851, Boards Collections F/4/2604 (163062), pp. 18–39.

95 Governor of the Straits Settlements to A. Turnbull, Under-Secretary to the Government of India, 28 August 1844, Boards Collections F/4/2153 (103598), p. 7.

96 Ibid., Testimony of Yap Cheeap, [8], p. 18.

97 Governor of the Straits Settlements to A. Turnbull, Under-Secretary to the Government of India, 28 August 1844, p. 8.

98 Hussin, Trade and Society in the Straits of Melaka, pp. 274–275.

99 Memorial from the Directors of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce to Sir Charles Wood 20 January 1866, CO 273/9, pp. 347–348, NA.

100 Buckley, An Anecdotal History, p. 771, 773; Petitions to Sir Frederick Rogers, Under-Secretary of State at the Colonial Office, 19 September 1864 and 1 February 1865, CO273/8, pp. 86–88, 93–96.

101 Buckley, An Anecdotal History, p. 548; Memorial to the Governor-General in Council from the merchants and inhabitants of Singapore, 15 October 1851, Boards Collections F/4/2479, pp. 11–12.

102 Turnbull, The Straits Settlements, pp. 326–327; SFP 14 January, 18 February and 8 April 1852.

103 Turnbull, The Straits Settlements, p. 327; SFP 16 April 1852 (Crawfurd's memorandum).

104 Turnbull, The Straits Settlements, p. 335.

105 Ibid., p. 348.

106 Currency Adapted to the Straits Settlements: and the Nature & Extent of the Commerce of Singapore with Remarks on Act XVII of 1855 (Published under the Direction of the Committee Appointed at a Public Meeting held at Singapore, August 11th 1855 (G. M. Frederick, Singapore 1855).

107 20th report of LEICA 1856, pp. 11–12.

108 Turnbull, The Straits Settlements p. 337, 345.

109 Ibid., p. 333; SFP23 April 1857.

110 SFP 18 December 1856.

111 Wong Lin Ken, The Trade of Singapore, p. 190.

112 Crawfurd, J. (1858). Memorandum on the British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca, Penang, Singapore and Malacca (C. W. Beynell, London), p. 3Google Scholar.

113 Kawamura, T. (2006). ‘British Business and Empire in Asia: The Eastern Exchange Banks, 1851–63’, in Bates, D. & Kondo, K. (eds), Migration and Identity in British History (Proceedings of the Fifth Anglo-Japanese Conference of Historians in London, Tokyo September), pp. 193–212, especially pp. 201–205Google Scholar.

114 Notes on the Straits Currency, Public Meeting at Singapore 11 August 185, Currency Adapted to the Straits Settlements: and the Nature and Extent of the Commerce of Singapore with Remarks on Act VII of 1855 (published under the direction of the Committee appointed at a public meeting held at Singapore, 11 August 1855, G. M. Frederick of Singapore), p. 1.

115 Notes on the Straits Currency, p. 7.

116 Buckley, An Anecdotal History, p. 755.

117 Ibid., p. 763

118 Guthrie, A. (1861). The British Possessions in the Straits of Malacca (London), p. 13Google Scholar.

119 Ibid., pp. 7–8

120 Ibid., pp. 12–13.

121 Turnbull, The Straits Settlements, p. 379.

122 Carnarvon's report to Sir Edward Lefton on the proposed transfer of the Straits Settlements to the Colonial Office, 20 January 1859, CO 273/7, pp. 2–17, especially p. 11.

123 Ibid., p. 12.

124 Buckley, An Anecdotal History, pp. 773–780.

125 Ballantyne, T. (2002). Aryanism in the British Empire (Palgrave, Basingstoke), pp. 14–16Google Scholar; McVey, ‘Afterword: In praise of the Coelacanth's Cousin’, in Kratoska, Raben & Nordholt (eds), Locating Southeast Asia, pp. 308–319; Hall, C. and Rose, S. O. (2002). ‘Introduction: being at home with the empire’, in Hall, C. and Rose, S. O. (eds), At Home with the Empire: Metropolitan Culture and the Imperial World (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge), pp. 1–31, especially pp. 6–7Google Scholar.

126 Harper, T. (1997). Globalism and the Pursuit of Authenticity: the Making of a Diasporic Public Sphere in Singapore, Sojourn, 12:2, 261–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

127 Webster, A. (2009). The Twilight of the East India Company: The Evolution of Anglo-Asian Commerce and Politics 1790–1860 (Boydell, Woodbridge), pp. 136–137Google Scholar.

128 Currency Adapted to the Straits Settlements: and the Nature & Extent of the Commerce of Singapore with Remarks on Act XVII of 1855 (Published under the Direction of the Committee Appointed at a Public Meeting held at Singapore, August 11th 1855 (G. M. Frederick, Singapore 1855).

129 Buckley, An Anecdotal History, pp. 658–659.

130 Meeting of Malacca Inhabitants, 30 July 1853, Boards Collections F/4/2604 (163047), pp. 17–20.

131 Petition to Resident Councillor at Malacca 26 August 1853, Boards Collections F/4/2604 (163047), pp. 29–37.

132 Lees, Being British in Malaya.