Stamford Raffles

Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles FRS FRAS (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British colonial official who served as the governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816 and lieutenant-governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. Raffles was involved in the capture of the Indonesian island of Java from the Dutch during the Napoleonic Wars. It was returned under the Anglo–Dutch Treaty of 1814. He also wrote The History of Java in 1817, describing the history of the island from ancient times.

Raffles also played a role in further establishing the British Empire in East Asia. He secured control over the strategically located (but then-sparsely populated) Singapore from local rulers in 1819 to secure British access along the Strait of Singapore and the nearby seas in the region, particularly the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. His actions were initially not endorsed by the British government and led to tensions between the British and the Dutch; war was avoided under the Anglo–Dutch Treaty of 1824 which firmly established their spheres of influence, whereby the Dutch would relinquish its claims to Singapore and the British seceding Bencoolen in Sumatra to the Dutch. An entrepôt was subsequently established in Singapore for maritime trade between Europe and Asia.

While Raffles was largely credited for the founding of contemporary Singapore, the early running of day-to-day operations was mostly done by William Farquhar, who served as the first Resident of Singapore from 1819 to 1823. Raffles soon returned to England in 1824, where he died on his birthday in 1826 at the age of 45. His legacy while complex remains significant in Singapore, most notably the Raffles's Landing Site, as well as his name being a common sight in numerous entities and institutions throughout the country. Others have argued against excessive reverence as he was an imperialist who projected colonialism onto the 150-person population of Singapore that predated his arrival.