John Crawfurd
John Crawfurd was a Scottish physician, British colonial administrator, diplomat and writer who served as the second and last resident of Singapore.
Early life
He was born on Islay, in Argyll, Scotland, the son of Samuel Crawfurd, a physician, and Margaret Campbell; and was educated at the school in Bowmore. He followed his father's footsteps in the study of medicine and completed his medical course at the University of Edinburgh in 1803, at the age of 20.Crawfurd joined the East India Company, as a Company surgeon, and was posted to India's Northwestern Provinces, working in the area around Delhi and Agra from 1803 to 1808. He saw service in the campaigns of Baron Lake.
In the East Indies
Crawfurd was sent in 1808 to Penang, where he applied himself to the study of the Malay language and culture. In Penang, he met Stamford Raffles for the first time.In 1811, Crawfurd accompanied Raffles on Lord Minto's Java Invasion, which overcame the Dutch. Raffles was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Java by Minto during the 45-day operation, and Crawfurd was appointed the post of Resident Governor at the Court of Yogyakarta in November 1811. There he took a firm line against Sultan Hamengkubuwana II. The Sultan was encouraged by Pakubuwono IV of Surakarta to assume he had support in resisting the British; who sided with his opponents: his son, the Crown Prince, and Pangeran Natsukusuma. The Sultan's palace, the Kraton Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat, was besieged and taken by British-led forces in June 1812.
File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Vrouwen met koopwaar langs de weg die leidt naar de poort van de kraton in Jogjakarta. TMnr 60007923.jpg|thumb|left|The kraton in Yogyakarta, a gate in a photograph from the early 20th century. The palace was made up of pendopo surrounded by a whitewashed wall.
As Resident, Crawfurd also pursued the study of the Javanese language, and cultivated personal relationships with Javanese aristocrats and literati. He was impressed by Javanese music.
File:Javanese week.jpg|thumb|Javanese signs for the five days of the week, engraving by William Home Lizars from Crawfurd's History of the Indian Archipelago
Crawfurd was sent on diplomatic missions to Bali and the Celebes. His knowledge of the local culture supported Raffles's government in Java. Raffles, however, wanted to introduce land reform in the Cheribon residency. Crawfurd, with his experience of India and the zamindari, was a supporter of the "village system" of revenue collection. He opposed Raffles's attempts to introduce individual settlement into Java.
Diplomat
Java was returned to the Dutch in 1816, and Crawfurd went back to England that year, shortly becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society, and turning to writing. Within a few years he was recalled to South-East Asia, as a diplomat; his missions were of limited obvious success.Mission to Siam, Cochin China
In 1821, the then Governor-General of India, Lord Hastings, sent Crawfurd to the courts of Siam and Cochinchina. Lord Hastings was especially interested in learning more about Siamese policy with regard to the northern Malay states, and Cochinchina's policy with regard to French efforts to establish a presence in Asia.Crawfurd travelled with notes from Horace Hayman Wilson on Buddhism, as it was understood at the time.
Captain Dangerfield of the Indian army, a skilful astronomer, surveyor and geologist, served as assistant; Lieutenant Rutherford commanded thirty Sepoys; noted naturalist George Finlayson served as medical officer. Mrs. Crawfurd accompanied the Mission.
On 21 November 1821, the mission embarked on the John Adam for the complicated and difficult navigation of the Hoogly River, taking seven days to sail the 140 miles from Calcutta to open water. Crawfurd writes that, with the assistance of a steam-boat, ships might be towed down in two days without difficulty; then adds in a footnote: "The first steam-vessel used in India, was built about three years after this passage was written...."
The John Adam proceeded on what would be the first official visit to Siam since the resurgence of Siam following the 1767 Fall of Ayutthaya. Crawfurd soon found the court of King Rama II still embroiled in the aftermath of the Burmese–Siamese War of 1809–1812. On 8 December 1821, near Papra Strait Crawfurd finds fishermen "in a state of perpetual distrust and insecurity" due to territorial disputes between hostile Burmans and Siamese. On 11 December, after entering the Straits of Malacca and arrival at Penang Island, he finds the settlements of Penang and Queda in a state of alarm. Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin Halim Shah II of Kedah, had fled the Rajah of Ligor to claim right of asylum at Prince of Wales's Island British claims to the island was based upon payment of a quit-rent accordant with European feudal law, which Crawfurd feared the Siamese would challenge.
Crawfurd's journal entry for 1 April 1822, notes that the Siamese, for their part, were especially interested in the acquisition of arms. Pointedly questioned in this regard in an urgent private meeting with the Prah-klang, the reply was, "that if the Siamese were at peace with the friends and neighbours of the British nation, they would certainly be permitted to purchase fire-arms and ammunition at our ports, but not otherwise." On 19 May, a Chief of Lao met with Crawfurd, a first diplomatic contact for the UK. This visit was despite the isolation into which the mission had fallen. A Vietnamese embassy had arrived not long before, and tensions were high. Since Crawford's brief had opposed the interests of court figures including the Raja of Ligor and Nangklao, there was little prospect of success. By October relations were at a low ebb. Crawfurd moved on to Saigon, but Minh Mạng refused to see him.
Resident of Singapore
Crawfurd was appointed British Resident of Singapore in March 1823. He was under orders to reduce the expenditure on the existing factory there, but instead responded to local commercial representations, and spent money on reclamation work on the river. He also concluded the final agreement between the East India Company, and Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor with the Temenggong, on the status of Singapore on 2 August 1824. It was the culmination of negotiations started by Raffles in 1819, and the agreement is now sometimes called the Crawfurd Treaty. He also had input into the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 dealing with spheres of influence in the East Indies.Crawfurd was on familiar terms with Munshi Abdullah. He edited and contributed to the Singapore Chronicle of Francis James Bernard, the first local newspaper that initially appeared dated 1 January 1824. Crawford Street and Crawford Bridge in Singapore are named after him.
Burma mission
Crawfurd was sent on another envoy mission to Burma in 1826, by Hastings's successor Lord Amherst, in the aftermath of the First Anglo-Burmese War. It was to be his last political service for the Company. The party included Adoniram Judson as interpreter and Nathaniel Wallich as botanist. Crawfurd's journey to Ava up the River Irrawaddy was by paddle steamer, the Diana: it had been hired by the East India Company for the war, where it had seen action and travelled 400 miles up the Irrawaddy. There were five local boats, and soldiers making up a party of over 50.Crawfurd at the court found Bagyidaw temporising despite a weak position with the British forces in Arakan and Tenasserim. The king conceded only a trade agreement, in return for a delay in indemnity payments; and sent his own mission to Calcutta.
The expedition fortuitously was delayed on the return journey for repairs. Crawfurd collected significant fossils, north of Magwe on the left bank of the river, in seven chests. Back in London, William Clift identified a new species of mastodon from them; Hugh Falconer also worked on the collection. The finds, of fossil bones and wood, were discussed further in a paper by William Buckland, giving details; and they brought Crawfurd the friendship of Roderick Murchison, Foreign Secretary of the Geological Society. There were also collected 18,000 botanical specimens, many of which went to the Calcutta Botanic Garden.
File:Mastodon jaw Crawfurd expedition.jpg|thumb|Jaw collected by John Crawfurd near Yenangyaung in Burma, now a type specimen for Stegolophodon latidens. Plate 36 of the original paper by William Clift.
Later life
In the United Kingdom, Crawfurd spent around 40 years in varied activities. He wrote as an orientalist, geographer and ethnologist. He tried parliamentary politics, without success; he agitated for free trade; and he was a publicist for and against colonisation schemes, in line with his views. He also represented the interests of British traders based in Singapore and Calcutta.Radical parliamentary candidate
Crawfurd made several unsuccessful attempts to enter the British Parliament in the 1830s. His campaign literature featured universal suffrage and the secret ballot, free trade and opposition to monopolies, public education and reduction of military spending, and opposition to regressive taxation and the taxation of Dissenters for a state church, with nationalisation of Church of England properties. He joined the Parliamentary Candidate Society, founded by Thomas Erskine Perry, to promote "fit and proper" Members of Parliament. He also joined the Radical Club, a breakaway from the National Political Union founded in 1833 by William Wallis.Crawfurd unsuccessfully contested, as an advanced radical, Glasgow in 1832, Paisley in 1834, Stirling Burghs in 1835, and Preston in 1837. At Glasgow he polled fourth, with Sir Daniel Sandford third. In March 1834 it was Sandford who was elected at Paisley. Alexander's East India and Colonial Magazine struck a note of regret after his defeat at Stirling Burghs.
On 31 January 1834 Crawfurd supported Thomas Perronet Thompson in a meeting agitating against the Corn Laws. Thomas Carlyle alluded, in notes on one of Jane Welsh Carlyle's letters, to Crawfurd speaking at a radical meeting at the London Tavern set up by Charles Buller on 21 November 1834; in which he showed much more originality than John Arthur Roebuck, but lost his thread.
In Preston in the 1837 general election Crawfurd had the Liberal nomination in a three-cornered fight for two seats, as Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood was regarded as a waverer by the Conservatives who ran Robert Townley Parker against him; but he polled third. He also supported John Temple Leader's candidacy at Westminster against Sir Francis Burdett, being deputy chairman on his election committee. Crawfurd spoke with George Grote at a meeting for Leader at the Belgrave Hotel.