Raffles' Passion to be a Naturalist

The ship Ann docked at Port Morant, Jamaica, from its voyage to the Caribbean Islands. The ship's captain, Benjamin Raffles (1729-1812), used to ply London-Central Africa-Caribbean to profit from the slave trade and bring in crops. Anne Lyde Linderman, his heavily pregnant wife, was also with him.

After resting for a few days, the ship sailed back to England, but not far from the harbor, the sound of a baby crying was heard. A baby boy was born on the deck of the ship on July 6, 1781, and was named Thomas Raffles, someone who would later have a strong influence on Great Britain's empire in the Far East.

Raffles grew up to be a bright and enterprising child. Due to the economic crisis in England, he was forced to leave the seminary at the age of 14 and started to work as a clerk at the British East India House in London.

His spare time was devoted to pursuing matters closely related to his interrupted studies. Raffles loved science literature, earth sciences, and literature. He was also enamored of nature and its mysteries. He loved to walk the length and breadth of Wales, spending hours enjoying nature and looking at plants. "His garden was his delight, to this was added a love of animals, which was perhaps unequaled," wrote Sophia Raffles, his second wife, in the book Memoir of the Life and Public Service of Sir Stamford Raffles Vol. 1.

He was exceptional in his work, and thanks to his tenacity, Raffles was promoted to assistant secretary of the colonial government in Penang in 1804 and to secretary a year later. His career path was marked by his marriage on March 14, 1805 to Olivia Marianne Fancourt nee Devenis, the widow of an assistant surgeon in Madras.  

His history of wandering in the "eastern territories" then began.

On the Way to be a Naturalist

As an administrator, Raffles often struggled with documents and negotiations that used Malay, so he was assisted by a local named Siami. John Bastin, a historian from the University of London, in "Abdullah and Siami" published in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol. 81 in 2008, suspects that Siami was a young Malay who also spoke Thai.  

Siami was still young when he met Raffles, but he was undeniably an important figure in Raffles' career. Reports, papers, even negotiations that used Malay would almost certainly be done by him. Apart from accompanying Raffles, Siami also helped with some translation work for Dr. Leyden, a naturalist who pursued linguistics and supervised Raffles' eastern studies.  

Raffles' skills and ability to recognize the eastern region, as well as his proficiency in Malay, led British Governor-General Gilbert Elliot Murray-Kynyn-mond, or Lord Minto, to send him to Malacca and include him in a military expedition to Java.  

In Malacca, Raffles began to discover an enthusiasm for plants and animals. He hired and sent four people into the forest to record and research various plants and animals. This activity was recorded by Abdullah bin Abdulkadir Munsyi, a local who helped him, in Hikayat Abdullah. The four men were divided based on different objects of research. One dealt with various plants, flowers, fungi, roots, and grasses, while another searched for and made descriptions of butterflies, beetles, worms, insects and venomous animals. Another one collected various shellfish, mollusks, and fish, while the other one captured wild bird in the forest and four-legged animals.

Raffles listed and categorized the results of the four people's searches. He categorized plant and flower variants and commissioned a Chinese to paint them. He even separated venomous animals, such as snakes, centipedes, scorpions and the like which he put in barrels filled with toddy and brandy.

Plants were undeniably his favorite objects. In a letter to Dr. Nathaniel Wallich (1785-1854), a Danish naturalist, Raffles declared botany "a beautiful science", but his love and passion for animals was greater. He collected several animals including the Siamang (Symphalangus syndactylus or black-furred Gibbon) while serving in Penang. The collection "attracted him more than his own children," as he wrote in a letter to the Duke of Somerset dated October 9, 1820.  

Many of his animal collections were gifts from local kings. While in Malacca, he received two orangutans (Pongopygmaeus Linnaeus) from the Sultan of Sambas Abubakar Kamaluddin. He received a young Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus) as a result of his agreement with Sultan Ala al-Din Jawhar Alam Shah of Aceh.  

His studies had to be interrupted when Lord Minto entrusted him to be Lieutenant Governor in Java. He was installed on September 11, 1811, a month after British forces won the battle of Meester Cornelis (present-day Jatinegara) against a joint French-Dutch force. The heavy administrative responsibilities made him hold back his passion for studying nature.

Java and the Land of Hope

Raffles' tenure in Java was short (1811-1816), but he left a legacy in administration and bureaucracy.  

Raffles became the antithesis of Herman Willem Daendels in governance. He abandoned the Dutch-style mercantile bureaucracy and administration and changed it to humanism-based liberal. He changed the land management system, from the Dutch system of forced cultivation system (cultuurstelsel) to a land rental system (landrente) that was more favorable to cultivators and tenants. He also limited the regent's authority, which was prone to irregularities, by abolishing the kontingenten or contingent role of the regent and replacing it with a resident stationed in 16 regencies in Java, except Batavia.  

Java's fertile and rich cultural and natural potential awakened his scientific instincts to retrace his stalled nature studies, especially after meeting Thomas Horsfield, an American doctor with an interest in botany and materia medica studies in December 1811.  

Thomas Horsfield started his studies in the Dutch East Indies ten years before Raffles' arrival. The Lieutenant Governor was fascinated with Horsfield's collection of plants and animals endemic to Java, as well as his collection of drawings and maps. Raffles hired Horsfield with the aim of securing a "history of nature" collection for the Oriental Museum of the British East India Company in London.

The interconnectedness of every aspect he found in Java; literature, art, religion, agricultural systems, trade, customs, and socio-politics, he poured out in The History of Java which began to be written in his airy house in Buitenzorg or Bogor.  

Raffles' attention to Javanese culture and literature encouraged him to develop the Batavia Ethnographic Museum. He maintained a good relationship with Prince Natakusuma (Pakualam I) who helped him translate and identify Javanese manuscripts, which are currently housed in the British Museum.  

The discovery of the Borobudur temple built by the Syailendra Dynasty, King Samaratungga, around 824 AD, is a form of Raffles' attention to material culture. Raffles sent H.C. Cornelius as soon as he received news of the discovery of a pile of stones covered with shrubs in Magelang in 1814. The following year, together with Horsfield, Raffles discovered the Panataran Temple located north of Blitar.  

Raffles' scientific passion had to be put on hold with the issuance of the London Convention which regulated the return of Dutch territory occupied by Britain. Raffles was disgruntled and was forced to accept the convention. Much of his work and research was unfinished. Meanwhile, during his service in Java, he also lost his closest ones, Dr. Leyden (1811), his beloved wife Olivia Marianne Devenis (1814), and Lord Minto (1814); who played a role in his career.  

Raffles took all the results of his research work in 200 30-ton crates to England and completed the writing of The History of Java. It was published for the first time in 1817 in two volumes with lavish color illustrations for its time.

Back to Nature

After leaving Java, his passion for natural research never stopped. In England, Raffles introduced his collections and the results of his work and research reports in Penang, Malacca, and Java to scientists and botanists at the Linnean Society of London.  

Good news came when he was promoted to Governor of Sumatra in 1818. With his new position and opportunity to travel back to the Eastern region, he could resume his nature studies.  

Raffles traveled to Sumatra accompanied by Dr. Joseph Arnold, a British Navy surgeon who served as his personal physician. At that time, Arnold was writing for a number of journals and collecting insects from South America, Australia, and the Sunda Strait. So, Raffles appointed Arnold to his life research staff with the aim of finding sources of spices and mining products in Sumatra.  

After arriving in Bengkulu on March 22, 1818, Arnold followed the Manna River (now the administrative area of Manna city, South Bengkulu) for two days. Arriving at Pulo Lebbar (30 kilometers from Manna), he saw a plant species with a giant flower. The description of the discovery of this endemic Southeast Asian plant was incomplete due to Arnold's untimely death in Padang due to Malaria.  

John Bastin in "Sir Stamford Raffles and Study of Natural History in Penang, Singapore, and Indonesia," published in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol. 63 No. 2 in 1990, revealed that Raffles benefited greatly from the discovery of the giant flower. His name continued to be associated as a great naturalist, thanks to Arnold's work. Arnold's name faded because his research reports and documents were destroyed in the burning of the Fame ship in 1824.  

William Jack, a talented botanist sent from Calcutta as Arnold's replacement, perfected the description of the giant flower.  

The report of the discovery of the giant flower was gradually sent to London and broadcast among the leading botanists in England by Robert Brown. Brown then presented the findings to members of the Linnean Society of London, naming the giant flower Rafflesia arnoldii.

Raffles also worked with Pierre Diard and Robert Duvaucel, two French zoologists. The two zoologists collected many animals and animal skeletons which they sent to the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, including the Kashmir goat which was first introduced to French zoological circles. The two zoologists then focused on animal research in Sumatra when Raffles was on a political mission in Aceh.  

By the time Raffles returned to Bengkulu on March 3, 1820, the two zoologists had amassed a large collection of animals and the standout was the Malayan Tapir (Tapirus indicus Desmarest). The results were documented in a descriptive catalog. However, for unclear reasons, the partnership broke down over "a bitter quarrel, which resulted in the expulsion of the two French zoologists from Bengkulu," writes Bastin.  

Their departure was an advantage for Raffles, as he could send animal collections to England. "It was thanks to this descriptive catalog that Raffles established his reputation as a zoologist, which he enhanced when he founded the Zoological Society of London in 1825-1826," added Bastin.  

Raffles was the founder of Singapore, an island he bought from the Sultan of Johor in 1819. Three years later, he invited Nathaniel Wallich, a Danish naturalist, to build a botanical garden for biological studies and spice cultivation in a government-owned plantation area in Singapore.  

Raffles brought his large collection from Sumatra. Abdullah, his personal assistant, described in Hikayat Abdullah that there were thousands of creatures, whose insides and bones were removed and filled with cotton, and they all looked like living animals. There were two or three chests full of different kinds of birds treated in the same way. There were hundreds of bottles, large and small, tall and short, filled with snakes, centipedes, scorpions, worms, and the like, plus two crates filled with shells and small molluscs of various kinds.  

Raffles took great interest in his plant and animal collection, "more than in gold or diamonds. From time to time he came and watched because he was afraid that the collection would be damaged when it was lifted to the ship," said Abdullah as quoted by Amin Sweeney in Karya Lengkap Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munsyi: Hikayat Abdullah (The Complete Works of Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munsyi: Abdullah's Hikayat).

In the midst of completing and perfecting his royal garden project, Raffles died the day before his 45th birthday on July 5, 1826.

‍