Editing Stamford Raffles (section)

==Early life==
Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles was born on {{Birth date|df=y|1781|7|5}} on board the ship ''Ann'', off the coast of [[Port Morant]], Jamaica,{{r|SophiaRaffles}} to Captain Benjamin Raffles (1739, London – 23 November 1811, [[Deptford]]) and Anne Raffles (née Lyde) (1755 – 8 February 1824, London).{{R|Bastin}} Benjamin served as a [[Sea captain|ship master]] for various ships engaged in the direct trade between England and the [[West Indies]]. Although some biographers have suggested that Benjamin was involved in the [[Atlantic slave trade|slave trade]], modern historians have refuted such claims. When Benjamin ended his involvement in the West India trade in 1800, it caused his family considerable hardship.<ref name=InfopediaRafflesFamily>{{cite web|id=InfopediaRafflesFamily|ref=InfopediaRafflesFamily|last=Cornelius|first=Vernon|author-link=Vernon Cornelius|date=24 August 2016|url=https://eResources.NLB.Gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_931_2004-12-23.html|title=Family of Sir Stamford Raffles {{!}} Infopedia|website=eResources.NLB.Gov.sg|publisher=[[National Library Board]], [[Government of Singapore]]|access-date=12 May 2020|archive-url=https://archive.today/20170622084147/http://eResources.NLB.Gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_931_2004-12-23.html|archive-date=22 June 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>

The little money the family had went into sending the young Raffles to the Mansion House Academy, [[Hammersmith]], a moderately priced boarding school, offering Latin, Greek, French, arithmetic, bookkeeping and geography, that specialised in preparing boys for clerkships or the army.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Faulkner |first1=Thomas |title=The history and antiquities of the parish of Hammersmith: Interspersed with biographical notices of illustrious and eminent persons, who have been born, or who have resided in the parish during the three preceding centuries |date=1839 |publisher=Nichols & Son |location=London |page=261 |language=en |oclc=940527190}}</ref> In 1795, at the age of 14, Raffles started working in [[London]] as a clerk for the [[East India Company]]. Nine years later, in 1804, the 23-year-old Raffles married [[Olivia Mariamne Devenish]], a widow 10 years his senior,{{R|Bastin|pages=57, 73, 107}} who was formerly married to Jacob Cassivelaun Fancourt, an assistant surgeon in Madras, who had died in 1800.{{R|Bastin|pages=59, 69}}

In 1805, he was sent to [[Penang Island|Prince of Wales Island]], [[British Malaya|Malaya]], starting his long association with Southeast Asia. He started as assistant secretary, under the Honourable [[Philip Dundas]], the new governor of Penang.<ref name="BritMus"/> At this time, he also made the acquaintance of [[Thomas Otho Travers]], who would accompany him for the next 20 years.<ref name=InfopediaRafflesFamily/>