John Crawfurd | |
|---|---|
 Crawfurd in the 1850s | |
| 2nd Resident of Singapore | |
| In office 27 May 1823 – 15 August 1826 | |
| Appointed by | Stamford Raffles |
| Monarch | George IV |
| Preceded by | William Farquhar |
| Succeeded by | Position abolished Governor of the Straits Settlements |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1783-08-13)13 August 1783 |
| Died | 11 May 1868(1868-05-11) (aged 84) South Kensington, London, England |
| Spouse | |
| Children |
|
| Parents |
|
| Residence(s) | Argyll,Scotland |
| Alma mater | University of Edinburgh |
| Occupation | Colonial administrator |
| Profession |
|
John CrawfurdFRS (13 August 1783 – 11 May 1868) was aScottish physician, British colonial administrator, diplomat and writer who served as the second and lastresident of Singapore.
He was born onIslay, inArgyll,Scotland, the son of Samuel Crawfurd, a physician, and Margaret Campbell; and was educated at the school inBowmore. He followed his father's footsteps in the study of medicine and completed his medical course at theUniversity of Edinburgh in 1803, at the age of 20.[1]
Crawfurd joined theEast India Company, as a Company surgeon, and was posted to India's Northwestern Provinces (nowUttar Pradesh), working in the area aroundDelhi andAgra[2] from 1803 to 1808. He saw service in the campaigns ofBaron Lake.[3]
.jpg)
Crawfurd was sent in 1808 toPenang, where he applied himself to the study of theMalay language and culture.[1] In Penang, he metStamford Raffles for the first time.
In 1811, Crawfurd accompanied Raffles onLord Minto'sJava Invasion, which overcame the Dutch.[2] Raffles was appointed Lieutenant-Governor ofJava by Minto during the 45-day operation, and Crawfurd was appointed the post of Resident Governor at the Court ofYogyakarta in November 1811. There he took a firm line against SultanHamengkubuwana II. The Sultan was encouraged byPakubuwono IV ofSurakarta to assume he had support in resisting the British; who sided with his opponents: his son, theCrown Prince, andPangeran Natsukusuma.[4] The Sultan's palace, theKraton Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat, wasbesieged and taken by British-led forces in June 1812.[5]
As Resident, Crawfurd also pursued the study of the Javanese language, and cultivated personal relationships with Javanese aristocrats and literati. He was impressed byJavanese music.[7]
Crawfurd was sent on diplomatic missions toBali and the Celebes (nowSulawesi). His knowledge of the local culture supported Raffles's government in Java. Raffles, however, wanted to introduce land reform in theCheribon residency. Crawfurd, with his experience of India and thezamindari, was a supporter of the "village system" of revenue collection. He opposed Raffles's attempts to introduce individual (ryotwari) settlement into Java.[8]
Java was returned to the Dutch in 1816, and Crawfurd went back to England that year, shortly becoming aFellow of the Royal Society, and turning to writing.[1] Within a few years he was recalled to South-East Asia, as a diplomat; his missions were of limited obvious success.
In 1821, the thenGovernor-General of India,Lord Hastings, sent Crawfurd to the courts ofSiam (nowThailand) andCochinchina (nowVietnam). Lord Hastings was especially interested in learning more about Siamese policy with regard to the northernMalay states, andCochinchina's policy with regard toFrench efforts to establish a presence in Asia.Crawfurd travelled with notes fromHorace Hayman Wilson onBuddhism, as it was understood at the time.[9]Captain Dangerfield of theIndian army, a skilful astronomer, surveyor and geologist, served as assistant; Lieutenant Rutherford commanded thirtySepoys; notednaturalistGeorge Finlayson served asmedical officer.[10]Mrs. Crawfurd accompanied the Mission.
On 21 November 1821, the mission embarked on theJohn Adam for thecomplicated and difficult navigation of the Hoogly river, taking seven days to sail the 140 miles (225 km) fromCalcutta 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...."
TheJohn Adam proceeded on what would be the first official visit to Siam since the resurgence of Siamfollowing the 1767 Fall of Ayutthaya. Crawfurd soon found the court of KingRama II still embroiled in the aftermath of theBurmese–Siamese War of 1809–1812. On 8 December 1821, near Papra Strait (modern Pak Prah Strait north ofThalang District) Crawfurd finds fishermen "in a state of perpetual distrust and insecurity" due to territorial disputes between hostileBurmans and Siamese. On 11 December, after entering theStraits of Malacca and arrival atPenang Island, he finds the settlements ofPenang and Queda in a state of alarm.Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin Halim Shah II ofKedah, had fled theRajah of Ligor (modernNakhon Si Thammarat) to claimright of asylum at Prince of Wales's Island (modern Penang) British claims to the island was based upon payment of aquit-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 thePrah-klang (Prayurawongse), 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 (Chao Anu, a king in what is nowLaos andsoon-to-be rebel) met with Crawfurd, a first diplomatic contact for the UK.[11] 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 ofLigor andNangklao, there was little prospect of success. By October relations were at a low ebb.[12] Crawfurd moved on toSaigon, butMinh Mạng refused to see him.[13][14]
Crawfurd was appointed BritishResident of Singapore in March 1823. He was under orders to reduce the expenditure on the existingfactory there, but instead responded to local commercial representations, and spent money on reclamation work on the river.[15] He also concluded the final agreement between the East India Company, and SultanHussein Shah of Johor with theTemenggong, on the status of Singapore on 2 August 1824. It was the culmination of negotiations started by Raffles in 1819,[16] and the agreement is now sometimes called the Crawfurd Treaty.[17] He also had input into theAnglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 dealing with spheres of influence in the East Indies.[18]
Crawfurd was on familiar terms withMunshi Abdullah.[19] He edited and contributed to theSingapore Chronicle of Francis James Bernard, the first local newspaper that initially appeared dated 1 January 1824.[20] Crawford Street [sic] and Crawford Bridge [sic] in Singapore are named after him.[18]
Crawfurd was sent on another envoy mission toBurma in 1826, by Hastings's successorLord Amherst, in the aftermath of theFirst Anglo-Burmese War. It was to be his last political service for the Company. The party includedAdoniram Judson as interpreter andNathaniel Wallich as botanist. Crawfurd's journey toAva up theRiver Irrawaddy was bypaddle steamer, theDiana: 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.[21][22][23]
Crawfurd at the court foundBagyidaw temporising despite a weak position with the British forces inArakan andTenasserim. The king conceded only a trade agreement, in return for a delay in indemnity payments; and sent his own mission toCalcutta.[24]
The expedition fortuitously was delayed on the return journey for repairs. Crawfurd collected significant fossils, north ofMagwe on the left bank of the river, in seven chests. Back in London,William Clift identified a new species of mastodon (more accuratelyStegolophodon) from them;[25]Hugh Falconer also worked on the collection.[26] The finds, of fossil bones and wood, were discussed further in a paper byWilliam Buckland, giving details;[27] and they brought Crawfurd the friendship ofRoderick Murchison, Foreign Secretary of theGeological Society.[28] There were also collected 18,000 botanical specimens, many of which went to theCalcutta Botanic Garden.[29]
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 forfree 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.
Crawfurd made several unsuccessful attempts to enter the British Parliament in the 1830s. His campaign literature featureduniversal suffrage and thesecret ballot,free trade and opposition tomonopolies,public education and reduction of military spending, and opposition toregressive taxation and the taxation ofDissenters for astate church, with nationalisation ofChurch of England properties.[31] He joined the Parliamentary Candidate Society, founded byThomas Erskine Perry (his brother-in-law), to promote "fit and proper" Members of Parliament.[32] He also joined theRadical Club, a breakaway from theNational Political Union founded in 1833 byWilliam Wallis.[33][34]
Crawfurd unsuccessfully contested, as an advanced radical,Glasgow in 1832,Paisley in 1834,Stirling Burghs in 1835, andPreston in 1837.[35] At Glasgow he polled fourth (there were two MPs for the borough), withSir Daniel Sandford third.[36] In March 1834 it was Sandford who was elected at Paisley.[37]Alexander's East India and Colonial Magazine struck a note of regret after his defeat at Stirling Burghs.[38]
On 31 January 1834 Crawfurd supportedThomas Perronet Thompson in a meeting agitating against theCorn Laws.[39]Thomas Carlyle alluded, in notes on one ofJane Welsh Carlyle's letters, to Crawfurd speaking at a radical meeting at theLondon Tavern set up byCharles Buller on 21 November 1834; in which he showed much more originality thanJohn Arthur Roebuck, but lost his thread.[40]
In Preston in the1837 general election Crawfurd had the Liberal nomination in a three-cornered fight for two seats, asPeter Hesketh-Fleetwood was regarded as a waverer by the Conservatives who ranRobert Townley Parker against him; but he polled third.[41] He also supportedJohn Temple Leader's candidacy at Westminster againstSir Francis Burdett, being deputy chairman on his election committee (withThomas Prout, chairmanSir Ronald Craufurd Ferguson).[42] Crawfurd spoke withGeorge Grote at a meeting for Leader at the Belgrave Hotel.[43]
A lifelong advocate of free trade policies, inA View of the Present State and Future Prospects of the Free Trade and Colonization of India (1829), Crawfurd made an extended case against the East India Company's approach, in particular in excluding British entrepreneurs, and in failing to develop Indian cotton. He had had experience in Java of the export possibilities for cotton textiles.[44] He then gave evidence in March 1830 to a parliamentary committee, on the East India Company's monopoly of trade with China.[45]Robert Montgomery Martin criticised Crawfurd, and the evidence ofRobert Rickards, an ex-employee of the Company,[46] for exaggerating the financial burden of the monopoly on tea. Crawfurd put out a pamphlet,Chinese Monopoly Examined.[47]Ross Donnelly Mangles defended the East India Company in 1830, in an answer addressed to Rickards and Crawfurd.[48] When the Company's charter came up for renewal in 1833, the China trade monopoly was broken. Crawfurd's part as parliamentary agent for interests in Calcutta had been paid (at £1500 per year); his publicity work had included facts for anEdinburgh Review article written by another author.[49]
In reviewingEdward Gibbon Wakefield'sNew British Province of South Australia, and subsequent writing in theWestminster Review, Crawfurd gave an opinion against systematiccolonisation. He considered that abundant land and individual enterprise were the necessary elements.[50]Robert Torrens, who floated the South Australian Land Company, replied to theWestminster Review line inColonization of South Australia (1835).[51] Part I of the book is aLetter to Crawfurd.[52]
In 1843 Crawfurd gave evidence to theColonial Office onPort Essington, on the north coast ofAustralia, to the effect that its climate made it unsuitable for settlement. He returned to the topic in a debate in 1858 on settlements on theVictoria River, as had been suggested bySir George Everest.[53] He generally opposedSir Roderick Murchison's promotion of European colonisation of Australia, as far as it applied to the north coast.[54]
When the Stamp Act 1827 was passed, meaning that all public documents in India would have to pay astamp tax (including newspapers as well as legal documents), Crawfurd was hired as London agent for a group of British merchants in Calcutta opposing the legislation. Crawfurd involvedJoseph Hume, and he obtained newspaper coverage for his cause, including inThe Examiner where the precedents from America were cited. He also wrote pamphlets himself, in which he advocated an end to the East India Company monopoly, and European colonisation.[55] These moves occurred in 1828–9; in 1830 Crawfurd approachedWilliam Huskisson directly.[56] His lobbying continued with the free trade issues mentioned above.Inquiry into the System of Taxation in India, Letters on the Interior of India, an attack on the newspaper stamp-tax and the duty on paper entitled Taxes on Knowledge (1836) is a related work.
In 1855 Crawfurd went with a delegation to theBoard of Control of the East India Company, with representations on behalf of theStraits dollar as an independent currency. Crawfurd lobbied in both Houses of Parliament, withGeorge Keppel, 6th Earl of Albemarle acting to bring a petition to the Lords, andWilliam Ewart Gladstone putting the case in the Commons. Among the arguments put was that the dollar was adecimal currency, while therupee used by traders, andlegal tender in East India Company territories since it was coined in 1835, was not. In 1856 a Bill to change the status quo on coins minted and issued from India was defeated.[57]
In 1868 Crawfurd with James Guthrie and William Paterson formed theStraits Settlements Association, to protect the colony's interests.[58] Crawfurd was its first President.
He was elected President of theEthnological Society in 1861. He died at his home inElvaston Place,South Kensington, London on 11 May 1868 at the age of 85.[2]
Crawfurd wrote prolifically. His views have been seen as inconsistent: a recent author wrote that "[...] Crawfurd seemed to embody a complex mixture of elements of coexisting but ultimately contradictory value systems".[59] A comment about "hasty general opinions from a few instances", byGeorge Bennett on the topic ofPapuan people, has been taken to be aimed at Crawfurd.[60]
His 1822 work"Malay of Champa" contains a vocabulary of theCham language.[citation needed]
In retirement after the Burmese mission, Crawfurd wrote books and papers on Eastern subjects. His envoy experiences from missions were written up inJournals in 1828 and 1829. This documentation was reprinted nearly 140 years later by Oxford University Press.
According to Jane Rendall's concept of "Scottish orientalism", Crawfurd is a historian of the second generation.[63] HisHistory of the Indian Archipelago (1820), in three volumes, was his major work. Crawfurd was a critic of much of what the European nations had done in the area of Asia he covered.[64]
An Historical and Descriptive Account of China (1836) was a joint work in three volumes from theEdinburgh Cabinet Library, withHugh Murray, Peter Gordon,Thomas Lynn,William Wallace, andGilbert Thomas Burnett.
Crawfurd andColin Mackenzie collected manuscripts from the capture of Yogyakarta, and some of these are now in theBritish Library.[65]
Crawfurd claimedCham for theAustronesian languages. His suggestion met no favour at the time, but scholars from around 1950 onwards came to agree.[66]
Crawfurd held strong views on what he saw as the backwardness of the economy of India of his time. He attributed it to the weakness of Indian financial institutions, compared to Europe.[67] His opinions were in an anonymous pamphletA Sketch of the Commercial Resources and Monetary and Mercantile System of British India (1837) now attributed to him.[68] LikeRobert Montgomery Martin, he saw India primarily as a source of raw materials, and advocated investment based on that direction.[69] A harsh critic of the existing Calcutta agencies, he noted the absence ofbill broking in India and suggested that an exchange bank should be set up.[70]
His view that an economy dominated by agriculture was inevitably anabsolute government was cited bySamuel Taylor Coleridge, in hisOn the Constitution of the Church and State.[71]
While Crawfurd produced work that was ethnological in nature over a period of half a century, the term "ethnology" had not even been coined when he began to write. Attention has been drawn to his latest work, from the 1860s, which was copious, much criticised at the time, and which has also been scrutinised in the 21st century, as detailed below.
Crawfurd heldpolygenist views, based on multiple origins of human groups; and these earned him, according toSir John Bowring, the nickname "the inventor of forty Adams".[72] InThe Descent of Man byCharles Darwin, Crawfurd is cited as believing in 60 races.[73] He expressed these views to theEthnological Society of London (ESL), a traditional stronghold ofmonogenism (belief in a unified origin of humankind) where he had come in 1861 to hold office as President.
Crawfurd believed in different races as separate creations by God in specific regional zones, with separate origins for languages, and possibly as different species.[74] WithRobert Gordon Latham of the ESL, he also opposed strongly the ideas ofMax Müller on an originalAryan race.[75]
Crawfurd wrote in 1861 in theTransactions of the ESL a paperOn the Conditions Which Favour, Retard, and Obstruct the Early Civilization of Man, in which he argued for deficiencies in the science and technology of Asia.[76] InOn the Numerals as Evidence of the Progress of Civilization (1863) he argued that the social condition of a people correlates with the numeral words of their language.[77] Crawfurd useddomestication frequently as a metaphor.[78] His racist views onblack people were laughed at, during theBritish Association meeting atBirmingham in 1865.[79][need quotation to verify]
A paper by Crawfurd,On the Physical and Mental Characteristics of European and Asian Races of Man, given 13 February 1866, argued for the superiority of Europeans. It particularly laid emphasis on European military dominance as evidence. Its thesis was directly contradicted at a meeting of the Society some weeks later, byDadabhai Naoroji.[80][81]
Analyses since the 1990s have sought to clarify Crawfurd's agenda in his writings on race at this time, when he had become prominent in a young and still fluid field and discipline. Ellingson demonstrates Crawfurd's role in promoting the idea of thenoble savage in service of racial ideology.[82] Trosper has taken Ellingson's analysis a step further, attributing to Crawfurd a conscious "spin" put on the idea of primitive culture, a rhetorically sophisticated use of a "straw man" fallacy, achieved by bringing in, irrelevantly but for the sake of incongruity, the figure ofJean-Jacques Rousseau.[83]
Crawfurd dedicated considerable effort to a critique of Darwin's theories ofhuman evolution; as a proponent ofpolygenism, who believed that human races did not share common ancestors, Crawfurd was an early and prominent critic of Darwin's ideas.[84] Right at the end of his life, in 1868, Crawfurd was using a "missing link" argument againstSir John Lubbock, in what Ellingson describes as a misrepresentation of a Darwinist viewpoint based on the idea that a precursor of humans must still be extant.[85]
Ellingson points to a 1781 work ofWilliam Falconer,On the Influence of Climate, with an attack on Rousseau, as a possible source of Crawfurd's thinking; while also pointing out some differences.[86] Ellingson also places Crawfurd in a British group among those of his period whose anthropological views not only turned onrace, but who also drew conclusions of superiority from those views, others beingLuke Burke,James Hunt,Robert Knox, andKenneth R. H. Mackenzie.[87]
Crawfurd's attitudes were not, however, based onhuman skin colour;[88] and he was an opponent of slavery,[89] having written an article "Sugar without Slavery" with Thomas Perronet Thompson in 1833 in theWestminster Review.[90][91] In dismissing Crawfurd's notes and suggestions on his work as "quite unimportant", Charles Darwin identified Crawfurd's racial views as "Pallasian", i.e. the analogue for humankind of the theories ofPeter Simon Pallas.[84]
The predominant approach in the ESL went back toJames Cowles Prichard. In the view ofThomas Trautmann, in Crawfurd's attack on the Aryan theory there is a final rejection of the "languages and nations" approach, which was Prichard's, and a consequent freeing of (polygenist) racial theory.[92]
Crawfurd married Horatia Ann, daughter ofJames Perry. From 1821 to 1822, Mrs. Crawfurd had accompanied theMission to Siam and Cochin China aboard theJohn Adam. As the ship made way from Bangkok to Hué, Mrs. Crawfurd went ashore on an island in the Gulf of Siam, where she made a considerable impression upon the natives.[93] The writerOswald John Frederick Crawfurd, born in 1834, was their son.[94] The couple knewJohn Sterling, and the Carlyles.[95] Thomas Carlyle metHenry Crabb Robinson at dinner at the Crawfurds (25 November 1837, at 27Wilton Crescent), making a poor impression.[96]
May 19. .... In the afternoon I had a visit from a native chief; a circumstance which did not often take place, for our vicinity to the Prah-klang's house, and the fear of exciting the jealousy of the Government, prevented many persons from calling upon us, who were otherwise well disposed to do so. The manners of this individual, who was a native of Lao, were singular. When he entered the room, I begged him to be seated; but before complying, he made three obeisances to- wards the palace, then three towards the residence of the Prah-klang, and three more to the company before him. His conversation was frank and intelligent, and he appeared well-informed respecting his own country, which forms so interesting and considerable, but to Europeans so little known, a portion of the present Siamese Empire.
....[H]ad Mr. Crawfurd come from the king of England, he would have been presented, but that in the present case it was as if the governor of Saigon sent an envoy to a monarch.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Crawfurd, John".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 387..... Mrs. Crawfurd had accompanied [270]us to the village, and her presence conferred a degree of interest upon the scene not easy to be described. The men, stupid with wonder, seemed to look upon her as a being of another creation; and indeed, if we cast our eyes upon the contrast in the female forms now before us, their wonder will not appear surprising, and these rude and wretched savages might well doubt that they had but little connexion with our race. Never, perhaps, was savage life more strikingly contrasted with refined; an accomplished female, brought up in all the elegance and refinement of the first metropolis in the world, stood opposed to the rude, scarce human forms of the savage islanders of the Gulf of Siam!
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link) Note 99.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link) Note 14. Works by or aboutJohn Crawfurd atWikisource
Media related toJohn Crawfurd at Wikimedia Commons| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Major-Gen.William Farquhar | Resident of Singapore 1823 – 1826 | Abolished Replaced byGovernor of the Straits Settlements |
.svg)
.svg)
