John Crawfurd is appointed second British Resident

John Crawfurd succeeded William Farquhar as resident of Singapore on 9 June 1823.^[1] Crawfurd joined the Medical Service of the East India Company (EIC) in 1803 at the age of 20 and was posted to Penang in 1808.^[2]

Crawfurd was well known both as an administrator and an author.^[3] His interests included languages, history and political administration.^[4] Crawfurd also authored several books on the regions around Singapore, including History of the Indian Archipelago, A Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language with a Preliminary Dissertation, and A Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands & Adjacent Countries.^[5] During Crawfurd’s years in office in Singapore, there was a marked increase in population, trade and revenue.^[6] While Raffles and Farquhar laid the basis for the founding of Singapore, it was Crawfurd who turned Raffles’s dream into a reality.

To protect British interests in the face of imminent political upheavals within the Johor-Lingga empire, Crawfurd pressured the Malay chiefs, Sultan Hussain Shah and Temenggong Abdul Rahman, into signing the Treaty of Friendship and Alliance (also known as “Crawfurd’s Treaty”) on 2 August 1824. The treaty officially ceded Singapore and all seas, straits and islands within 10 geographical miles (about 18.6 km) of her shores in perpetuity to the EIC and its heirs.^[7] In the same year, the “paper war” between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands ended with the signing of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 to demarcate the territorial interests of the two European powers. According to the terms of the treaty, the Dutch recognised the British occupation of Singapore, ceded Malacca to the British and agreed not to create an establishment or to make an agreement with any chief in the Malayan peninsula.^[8]

Crawfurd was resident of Singapore until 1826 and returned to the United Kingdom in 1830. In the last year of his life in 1868, Crawfurd became the first president of the Straits Settlements Association, which was formed in London to protect the settlements’s interests.^[9]

References
1. Bastin, J. (1981). The letters of Sir Stamford Raffles to Nathaniel Wallich 1819–1824. Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 54(2), p. 58, note 166. Call no.: RCLOS 959.5 JMBRAS.
2. Bastin, 1981, p. 58.
3. Buckley, C. B. (1984). An anecdotal history of old times in Singapore: From the foundation of the settlement ... on February 6th, 1819 to the transfer to the Colonial Office ... on April 1st, 1867 (p. 140). Singapore: Oxford University Press. Call no.: RSING 959.57 BUC.
4. Turnbull, C. M. (2009). A history of modern Singapore, 1819–2005 (p. 44). Singapore: NUS Press. Call no.: RSING 959.57 TUR.
5. An anecdotal history of old times in Singapore. (1884, November 1). The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1884–1942), p. 76. Retrieved from NewspaperSG; Bastin,1981, p. 59.
6. Turnbull, 2009, p. 46.
7. Turnbull, 2009, p. 47.
8. Turnbull, 2009, p. 47.
9. Turnbull, 2009, p. 49.