Raja Chulan
Raja Sir Chulan ibni Almarhum Sultan Abdullah Muhammad Shah II Habibullah KBE,CMG was a member of the Perak royal family.
Biography
He was born on 1 July 1869 at Tanjung Brambang, Krian. He was the second son of Sultan Abdullah Muhammad Shah II and Raja Tipah Binti Almarhum Sultan Shahabuddin Ri'ayat Shah Saifullah.Raja Sir Chulan received his early education at the Raffles Institution in Singapore at the age of 7 in 1876. Just a year after, his father Sultan Abdullah Muhammad Shah II was exiled to the Seychelles Island for his involvement in the murder of the first British Resident of Perak, J.W.W. Birch. Raja Sir Chulan later continued his secondary education at the Malacca High School in 1882.
At 17 years old, he joined the State Secretariat Kuala Kangsar and serve the office for 3 years. In 1889 after 13 years of separation, Raja Sir Chulan went to Seychelles Island to meet his family. Upon returning to Perak, Raja Sir Chulan was appointed as Settlement Officer Kurau, and later as Settlement Officer Parit Buntar cum Majistret. He joined with the British, as well as with the sultans of Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang to form a federation, dubbed the Federated Malay States, on 1 July 1896, the nucleus around which the present-day Malaysia was eventually created.
Beginning in 1920, local rulers in British Malaya, led by Sultan Iskandar, Tuanku Muhammad, Raja Chulan and Abdullah Dahan urged Britain's Colonial Office to raise an infantry regiment for the malays from the colonial population. The infantry regiment set a foundation to the establishment of Royal Malay Regiment as a pioneer regiment in the Malaysian Armed Forces.
He later became a member of the Federal Law Committee in 1924. Raja Chulan had also urged the British to improve the Malay people's economic standing and their access to employment in the civil service. He was made an honorary CMG in 1925.
Death and legacy
He died on 10 April 1933 and was buried in the Al-Ghufran Royal Mausoleum, Kuala Kangsar, Perak.In Kuala Lumpur, there is a street named Jalan Raja Chulan which was renamed after him in 1982, as well as a monorail station along that street.