British Planning for Post-war Malaya

Abstract

There is perhaps no more startling example in the history of the British Empire of a casual, almost imperceptible shift of attitude in the Colonial Office having such dramatic repercussions as in Malaya in 1874. Authorised to “enquire and report” into conditions in the western Malay states, the new Governor, Sir Andrew Clarke, found himself carried away by forces on the spot, which had been building up for twenty years while the British government maintained a strict policy of non-involvement. Within weeks of arriving in Malaya, Clarke made agreements with three Malay rulers for British Residents to be attached to their states, and laid the foundations for the relentless spread of British protection over the whole peninsula. These repercussions mystified Colonial Office officials at the time and left future generations of historians to unravel the mystery of what had happened and why.