(Originally published 1853. This volume is produced from d...)
Originally published 1853. This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Southeast Asia Visions collection.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1429743549/?tag=2022091-20
(Originally published 1853. This volume is produced from d...)
Originally published 1853. This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Southeast Asia Visions collection.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1429743557/?tag=2022091-20
(Originally published 1853. This volume is produced from d...)
Originally published 1853. This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Southeast Asia Visions collection.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1429743565/?tag=2022091-20
James Brooke was born on April 29, 1803, in Benares. His father, Thomas Brooke, was an English Judge in the Court of Appeal at Bareilly, British India; his mother, Anna Maria, born in Hertfordshire, was the daughter of Scottish peer Colonel William Stuart, 9th Lord Blantyre, and his mistress Harriott Teasdale.
Brooke stayed at home in India until he was sent, aged 12, to England for a brief education at Norwich School from which he ran away. Some home tutoring followed in Bath.
In 1819 he joined the armed forces of the East India Company. He was seriously wounded in the First Burmese War of 1824 and returned to England to recuperate. Upon his return to India in 1829, he resigned from the East India Company, and en route home again to England he visited China and Malaya.
Greatly impressed with the Malay Archipelago, Brooke invested in a yacht, the Royalist, and a trained crew, and in 1839 he arrived in northern Borneo to carry out scientific research and exploration. In Sarawak he met Pangeran an Muda Hashim, to whom he gave assistance in crushing a rebellion, thereby winning the allegiance of the Malays and Dayaks. In 1841 Muda Hashim offered Brooke the governorship of Sarawak in return for his help.
Raja Brooke was highly successful in suppressing the widespread piracy of the region. Malay nobles in Brunei, unhappy over Brooke's measures against piracy, arranged for the murder of Muda Hashim and his followers. Brooke, with assistance from a unit of Britain's China squadron, took over Brunei and restored its sultan to the throne. In return the sultan ceded complete sovereignty of Sarawak to Brooke, who in 1846 presented the island of Labuan to the British government.
Piracy, mainly by Sea Dayaks, continued to be a major problem, and in 1849, at the request of the sultan of Brunei, Brooke and his Malays raided the Sea Dayak area but did not gain a decisive victory. Shortly afterward, several vessels of the China squadron succeeded in stamping out piracy.
Early in his rule Brooke was concerned with the status of his dominion. The Chinese uprising, and the later Malay rebellion, made him aware of the need for foreign protection, and after the British government refused to provide a protective relationship, he toyed with the idea of turning Sarawak over to the Dutch. His heir designate and nephew, Capt. James Brooke (who had changed his name from Charles Johnson), was completely against any cession. Sir James continued his efforts to obtain England's recognition but without success. In 1863 he retired to England, where he died after a stroke on June 11, 1868.
Sir James Brooke was a British empire builder and the first "white ruler" of Sarawak, Borneo. Founder of a dynasty, Brooke ruled with integrity, justice, and a sympathetic understanding of the indigenous population. It is generally conceded that Brooke was a poor administrator and incompetent at finances, but his understanding of the Malays, Dayaks, and other people of Sarawak was profound, and his improvement of their status was undeniable.
In 1847 he was given the Freedom of the City of London, appointed British consul-general in Borneo and created a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB).
Some Bornean plant and bird species were named in Brooke's honour: Rhododendron brookeanum, a flowering plant named by Hugh Low and John Lindley, now included in Rhododendron javanicum; Rajah Brooke's Pitcher Plant (Nepenthes rajah), a pitcher plant named by Joseph Dalton Hooker; Rajah Brooke's Birdwing (Trogonoptera brookiana), a butterfly named by Alfred R. Wallace; Three species of reptiles are named in his honour: Hemidactylus brookii, Hydrophis brookii, and Tropidophorus brookei.
In 1857, the native village of Newash in Grey County, Ontario, Canada, was renamed Brooke and the adjacent township was named Sarawak by William Coutts Keppel (known as Viscount Bury, later the 7th Earl of Albemarle) who was Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Canada. James Brooke was a close friend of Viscount Bury's uncle, Henry Keppel; they had met in 1843 while fighting pirates off the coast of Borneo. Townships to the northwest of Sarawak were named Keppel and Albemarle. In 2001, Sarawak and Keppel became part of the township of Georgian Bluffs; Albemarle joined the town of South Bruce Peninsula in 1999. Keppel-Sarawak School is located in Owen Sound, Ontario.
Brooke's Point, a major municipality on the island of Palawan, Philippines, is named after him.
(Originally published 1853. This volume is produced from d...)
(Originally published 1853. This volume is produced from d...)
(Originally published 1853. This volume is produced from d...)
Among his alleged relationships was one with Badruddin, a Sarawak prince, of whom he wrote, "my love for him was deeper than anyone I knew. " This phrase led to some considering him to be either homosexual or bisexual. Later, in 1848, Brooke is alleged to have formed a relationship with 16‑year‑old Charles T. C. Grant, grandson of the seventh Earl of Elgin, who supposedly 'reciprocated'. Whether this relationship was purely a friendship or otherwise has not been fully revealed. One of Brooke's recent biographers wrote that during Brooke's final years in Burrator in Devon "there is little doubt . .. he was carnally involved with the rough trade of Totnes. " However, Barley does not note from where he garnered this opinion. Others have suggested Brooke was instead "homo-social" and simply preferred the social company of other men, disagreeing with assertions he was a homosexual.
James Brooke was 'a great admirer' of the novels of Jane Austen, and would 'read them and re-read them', including aloud to his companions in Sarawak.
Although he died unmarried, he did acknowledge one son. Neither the identity of the son's mother nor his birth date is clear. This son was brought up as Reuben G. Walker in the Brighton household of Frances Walker (1841 and 1851 census, apparently born ca. 1836). By 1858 he was aware of his Brooke connection and by 1871 he is on the census at the parish of Plumtree, Nottinghamshire as "George Brooke", age "40", birthplace "Sarawak, Borneo". He was married (in 1862) and had seven children, three of whom survived infancy; the oldest was called James.
Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak
