Frank Swettenham

Frank Swettenham by John Singer Sargent , 1904

His work in the Straits Settlments

The British Empire provided opportunities for thousands of men and women to make something of their lives from modest beginnings. The civil services around the empire were full of those who had risen from the lower middle classes with an education in a small boarding school to get positions which with hard work and a strong constitution enabled them to gain promotions to the highest positions. Such a man was Frank Swettenham who saw little of his father until his mother died and was not able to go to university because the family had insufficient money. He did though manage to get a scholarship in the Straits Settlements. He developed a love for the region and its people, and he rose from being an interpreter to becoming a Governor of the Straits Settlements, isolated regions of what is now Malaysia but then run by the East India Company. Swettenham was largely responsible for transforming them from four states that were swampy, mosquito infested and inhabited by a warlike people and pirates to an enlightened, progressive and civilised administration with roads, railways, hospitals and schools.

The Straits Settlements

Frank, having won a scholarship to the civil service in Singapore, set about learning the Malay language and the local countryside. His first job was working in the Land Office in Penang, a job which took him all over the province. After fifteen months he had qualified as a court interpreter and then accompanied the Governor of Singapore on his visits to Malaya which at the time consisted of a peninsula of just three British settlements – Penang, Malacca and Singapore. The region was characterized by piracy, robbery and plunder, slavery and a system of debt. It was thought that the indigenous Malay were dying out. There were endless wars of succession between the local princes. Chinese secret societies offered their services to competing Malay factions. By 1870 the struggle for control of the best tin concessions had become especially bloody and besieged princes appealed for aid to the British. When Frank Swettenham arrived in 1870 the Colonial Office was coming under pressure to keep out of the region.

Perak

In 1874 Abdullah, Rajah of Perak, one of several rajas who claimed the Sultanate of Perak, wrote to the Governor of Singapore asking for a British officer to teach him how to run his country. It was an opportunity the British could not resist. Within three weeks the British had gathered local Perak leaders and produced a treaty that changed the history of the peninsula. Frank Swettenham was chosen to be the interpreter at the meeting which drew up a constitution which established a British Resident to advise Abdullah and a Treaty which amongst other things gave the British the right to determine all matters of finance, and outlawed slavery and kidnapping. Swettenham was on the board of five commissioners that travelled around the province of Perak seeking to adjudicate on all claims, disarm Malays and Chinese and to dismantle stockades where they had been built.

It was not long before Frank was appointed Assistant Resident to the Sultan of Selangor, giving him informal advice and gently bringing him under the control of the British. He was just 24 and the only white man in the province. He advised the Sultan on all matters pertaining to the running of his province and when the British Resident in Perak, Mr Birch, was murdered in 1875, 1,600 British troops arrived from Singapore, Calcutta and Hong Kong and took over villages whose chiefs had been part of the conspiracy to kill Birch. Frank was used by the Royal Navy as a scout for their operation to find and hang the perpetrators. He was then sent to Singapore where he was assistant colonial secretary.

With there being a constant flow of governors to Singapore, Frank’s insight into the land and its people was a rich source of information for incoming governors. Frank’s travels led him to think the Malay Peninsula was a rich source of minerals and raw materials. When he was appointed in 1882 as Resident to the Sultan of Selangor, he found the place full of misery with filthy streets full of refuse. People bathed in the drinking wells, the local market was squalid and there were opium dens and brothels everywhere. Frank began to work on the realisation of his dream - to transform the area. He used his influence to re-plan Kuala Lumpur building new government buildings and the Royal Selangor Club with pavilions for cricket and lawn tennis.

He planned Malaya’s first railway line from Kuala Lumpur to the port of Klang, and negotiated for sites for a new hospital and police station, jail and new housing. He also created new bridle paths through the jungle with traders set up along the new paths. It was all paid for out of the revenue from the tin mines.

After a few years in Selangor, Swettenham was sent to Perak to replace the Resident, and he set about transforming the house of the Resident at Kuala Kangur introducing wonderful gardens and furniture. He also introduced rubber trees – the beginning of a new industry which in due course became Malaya’s main industry.

Resident in Kuala Lumpur

In 1884, after a three month break in India Swettenham was posted to Kuala Kangsar as Resident, to relief Hugh Low. He was a year in Kuala Kangsar and during that time 400 rubber seeds were collected from the first twelve trees -the beginning of the rubber industry that would make the whole area prosperous. In September he set off on a 200 miles journey with Hugh Clifford and Martin Lister to Lower Perak travelling by boat and on foot through thick jungle. He dealt with local grievances and was welcomed whefreever he went.

In 1888, after a two year leave of absence in England, Swettenham returned to Kuala Lumpur in Selangor where he continued his work of transforming the city with gardens and new public buildings.

Resident in Perak

In 1889 Swettenham became Resident of Perak once more, where he was based in Taiping the new capital. He was the most senior and highly paid British official in the Malay States. He conceived a plan to bring out British settlers and increase investment in the area and also to create a more stable government for the area. Instead of four Sultanates that fought each other periodically Frank wanted to create a federation of the states with a common administration dominated by the British. He was by now managing discussions held in the State Council. Frank discussed his idea for federation when he was next back in London in 1892 and having got the approval of the Colonial Office when back in Perak floated the idea. In 1895 the Colonial Office gave Frank the job of gaining the assent of the Sultans and he gained the signature of all concerned within two weeks. After leave in England, Swettenham returned as Resident General in 1896 and set about building a modern bureaucracy to administer the federation based in Kuala Lumpur.

The sultans were now puppets of the British

Although the Sultans were nominally still sovereigns the various state councils that Frank Swettenham established were just rubber stamping exercises. Although the Sultans sat on the Councils of State that ran the provinces, the laws were drafted in English and explained by Frank in Malay to the State Councils. Frank Swettenham was though largely responsible for the transformation of the area in to a major rubber producing area with a modern bureaucracy and cities that compared with any in the British Empire.

In a huge ceremony in July 1897 Swettenham brought all the Sultans together in a vast ceremonial gathering.

Swettenham's ahievement

Swettenham was largely responsible for turning a roadless jungle of 25,000 square miles, inhabited by half a million people into an enlightened administration. Swettenham became the new Governor of the Straits Settlement on 17 February 1901. By the time the second conference of the Sultans was held in 1903, a civil service had been established , but there were the rumblings of discontent as the sultans bean to realise that the administration was dominated by the British with the Malays only occupying lowly positions in the administration. Many of the chiefs felt they had been deceived by federation.

By Peter Crowhurst, August 2019