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John Crawfurd
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- For the Irish cricketer of the same name, see John Crawfurd (cricketer)
John Crawfurd, (born August 13, 1783 - died May 11, 1868) Scottish physician, and colonial administrator and author, was born in the island of Islay, Scotland on August 13, 1783. He followed his father's footsteps in the study of medicine and completed his medical course at Edinburgh in 1803, at the age of 20.
He joined the East India Company, as a Company surgeon and was posted to India's Northwestern Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) from 1803-1808.
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Encyclopedia
- For the Irish cricketer of the same name, see John Crawfurd (cricketer)
John Crawfurd, (born August 13, 1783 - died May 11, 1868) Scottish physician, and colonial administrator and author, was born in the island of Islay, Scotland on August 13, 1783. He followed his father's footsteps in the study of medicine and completed his medical course at Edinburgh in 1803, at the age of 20.
He joined the East India Company, as a Company surgeon and was posted to India's Northwestern Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) from 1803-1808. Following that he was sent to Penang, where he first acquainted himself with Southeast Asia, and applied himself to the study of Malay language and culture. It was also in Penang where he met Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore, for the first time.
In 1811, Crawfurd accompanied him on Lord Minto's military expedition of Java from the Dutch in 1811. When Raffles was appointed the Lieutenant-Governor by Lord Minto during the 45-day Java Expedition, Crawfurd was appointed the post of Resident at the Court of Yogyakarta in November 1811. As Resident, he pursued in the study of the Javanese language, cultivated personal relationships with several Javanese aristocrats and literati, and was sent on diplomatic missions to Bali and the Celebes (now Sulawesi).This scholastic pursuits, and his knowledge of the local culture proved to be invaluable to Raffles' government in Java.
However, tensions arise between Crawfurd and Raffles when he was asked to assist Raffles in introducing land reform in the Cheribon residency. Crawfurd, with his experience of India, was always a keen supporter of the Village System of revenue collection, and he vigorously opposed Raffles' attempts to introduce the individual (Ryotwari) settlement into Java.
Java was recaptured by the Dutch in 1816, and Crawfurd returned to England that year, turning to writing books. In 1820 he published his three-volume History of the Indian Archipelago. That following year in 1821, Crawfurd's expertise was recognised by Governor-General Lord Hastings, who sent him on a mission as an envoy to the courts of Siam (Thailand) and Cochin-China. In between those two missions, Crawfurd was appointed British Resident of Singapore in March 1823.
He was again sent on another envoy mission to Burma (Myanmar) in 1827, by Hastings' successor, Lord Amherst. It was to be his last political service for the Company - a difficult but nonetheless a historically significant one. These envoy experiences from envoy missions gave him material to write and publish his Journals in 1828 and 1829. This documentation proved to be useful guides to future missions, and resource materials for scholars - being reprinted nearly 140 years later by Oxford University Press.
In his retirement years after the Burmese mission, he spent the remaining years of his long life devoted to writing books and papers on Eastern subjects. Though he made several unsuccessful attempts to enter the British Parliament in the 1830s, he was elected President of the Ethnological Society in 1861, and in 1868 as the first President of the Straits Settlements Association, which was formed to protect the Colony's interests. That was his last office before his death in South Kensington, London on May 11, 1868 at the age of 85.
Books written by Crawfurd
- History of the Indian Archipelago (1820)
- Journal of an Embassy to the Court of Ava in 1827 (1829)
- Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin-China, exhibiting a view of the actual State of these Kingdoms (1830)
- 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)
- Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language (1852)
- Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands and Adjacent Countries (1856)
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