James Brooke

Template:Short description Template:Other people Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox royalty James Brooke Template:Post-nominals (29 April 1803<ref>Calcutta Monthly Journal Template:Webarchive, May 1803, p. 158, "Bengal Births. … At Bandel, on the 29th ultimo, the Lady of T. Brooke, Esq. of a Son"</ref> – 11 June 1868),<ref name="Brooke biography">Template:Cite news</ref> was a British soldier and adventurer who founded the Raj of Sarawak in Borneo. He ruled as the first White Rajah of Sarawak from 1841 until his death in 1868.

Brooke was born and raised in India during the rule of the British East India Company. After a few years of education in England, he served in the Bengal Army, was wounded, and resigned his commission. He then bought a ship and sailed to the Malay Archipelago where, in gratitude for helping to crush a rebellion, he was rewarded with the position of governor of Sarawak. He then vigorously suppressed piracy in the region and, in the ensuing turmoil, restored the Sultan of Brunei to his throne,Template:Citation needed for which the Sultan made Brooke the Rajah of Sarawak. He ruled until his death.

Brooke was not without detractors and was criticised in the British Parliament and officially investigated in Singapore for his anti-piracy measures. He was, however, honoured and feted in London for his activities in Southeast Asia. The naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace was one of many visitors whose published work spoke of his hospitality and achievements.

Early life

File:National Museum KL 2008 (54).JPG

Attack by Illanun pirates on Brooke's Jolly Bachelor, T. Datu, 1843

Brooke was born in Bandel, near Calcutta, Bengal, but baptised<ref>Birth and Baptism records http://indiafamily.bl.uk/ui/FullDisplay.aspx?RecordId=014-000031913 Template:Webarchive</ref> in Secrole, a suburb of Benares.<ref name="Brooke birth place"/> His father, Thomas Brooke, was an English judge in the Court of Appeal at Bareilly, British India; his mother, Anna Maria was born in Hertfordshire and 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 to England at the age of 12 for a brief education at Norwich School from which he ran away. Some home tutoring followed in Bath before he returned to India in 1819 as an ensign in the Bengal Army of the British East India Company. He saw action in Assam during the First Anglo-Burmese War until he was seriously wounded in 1825 and sent to England for recovery. In 1830, he arrived back in Madras but was too late to rejoin his unit, and resigned his commission. He remained on the ship he had travelled out in – the Castle Huntley – and returned home via China.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Sarawak

File:Royalist 1834 - Royal Yacht Squadron.jpg

Royalist 1834 – Royal Yacht Squadron – illustrated 1909

Brooke attempted to trade in the Far East, but was not successful. In 1835 he inherited £30,000 (£3M or US$3.7M in 2022 currency), which he used as capital to purchase the Royalist, a 142-ton schooner.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Setting sail for Borneo in 1838, he arrived in Kuching in August to find the settlement facing an uprising against the Sultan of Brunei. In Sarawak he met the Sultan's uncle, Pengiran Muda Hashim, to whom he gave assistance in crushing the rebellion, winning the gratitude of Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin II of Brunei, who in 1841 offered Brooke the governorship of Sarawak in return for his help.

Rajah Brooke was highly successful in suppressing the widespread piracy of the region. However, some 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 1842, the Sultan ceded complete sovereignty of Sarawak to Brooke. He was granted the title of Rajah of Sarawak on 24 September 1841, although the official declaration was not made until 18 August 1842. Brooke's cousin, Arthur Chichester Crookshank (1825–1891) joined his service on 1 March 1843 and was appointed as a magistrate.

Cession of Labuan to Great Britain

File:Anglo Bruni Treaty 1844.jpg

James Brooke and Sir Edward Belcher negotiating with the Sultan of Brunei, Oct 1844 which eventually led to the signing of the Treaty of Labuan between the Brunei sultanate and the British delegation on 18 December 1846 at the court of Brunei, in which Labuan was ceded to Great Britain.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="lb history">Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1844 Brooke began anti-pirate operations with ships of the Royal Navy and the East India Company off north-east Sumatra. On 12 February, he received a gunshot wound to his right arm and a spear cut to his eyebrow in their second engagement, at Murdu.<ref>Baring-Gould & Bampfylde, p. 103</ref> Later in 1844 the Sultan offered to cede the island of Labuan to the British but terms were not discussed at that time.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In November 1846 Captain Rodney Mundy was ordered to obtain the cession of Labuan. He negotiated the cession on 18 December 1846 and took possession of Labuan on 24 December 1846.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> James Brooke was appointed governor and commander-in-chief of Labuan in 1848.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Reign

File:Sir James Brooke (1847) by Francis Grant.jpg

Painting of the Rajah of Sarawak in 1847 by Francis Grant

During his reign, Brooke began to cement his rule over Sarawak: reforming the administration, codifying laws and fighting piracy, which proved to be an ongoing issue throughout his rule.Template:Citation needed Brooke returned temporarily to England in 1847, where he was given the Freedom of the City of London,<ref>"The Literary Gazette and Journal of the Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c: Saturday, October 23, 1847 – Varieties". The Literary Gazette A Weekly Journal of Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts. London: Henry Silverlock, Wardrobe Terrace, Doctors' Commons. 1847. p. 757. Retrieved 22 April 2022. The City of London, on the motion of Sir P. Laurie, has done itself honour by voting its Freedom in a gold box, to James Brooke, the rajah of Sarawak, and the regenerator of the Indian Archipelago</ref> appointed British consul-general in Borneo<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and created a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Brooke pacified the native peoples, including the Dayaks, and suppressed headhunting and piracy. He had many Dayaks in his forces and said that only Dayaks could kill Dayaks.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

File:Borneo and the Indian Archipelago.png

James Brooke's House in Kuching, 1848

In 1851 Brooke was accused of using excessive force against the native people, under the guise of anti-piracy operations, leading to the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry in Singapore in 1854. After an investigation, the commission dismissed the charges.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Brooke wrote to Alfred Russel Wallace on leaving England in April 1853, "to assure Wallace that he would be very glad to see him at Sarawak."<ref>Raby, Peter. Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 87 Template:ISBN?</ref> This was an invitation that helped Wallace decide on the Malay Archipelago for his next expedition, an expedition that lasted for eight years and established him as one of the foremost Victorian intellectuals and naturalists of the time. When Wallace arrived in Singapore in September 1854, he found Rajah Brooke "reluctantly preparing to give evidence to the special commission set up to investigate his controversial anti-piracy activities."<ref>Raby, p. 100.</ref>

During his rule, Brooke suppressed an uprising by Liu Shan Bang in 1857 and faced threats from Sarawak warriors like Sharif Masahor and Rentap and managed to suppress them.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Personal life

File:James Brooke photo.jpg

James Brooke

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.<ref>Spenser St John, The Life of Sir James Brooke, Rajah of SarawakTemplate:Page?Template:ISBN?</ref>

Brooke was influenced by the success of previous British adventurers and the exploits of the East India Company. His actions in Sarawak were directed at growing and securing his own personal wealth, expanding the British Empire and fighting piracy and slavery. His own abilities, and those of his successors, provided Sarawak with modern infrastructure and resulted in both fame and notoriety in some circles. His appointment as rajah by the Sultan, and his subsequent knighthood, are evidence both of his shrewd negotiation and political skills and his willingness to use violent force to supress his opponents and achieve his goals.Template:Citation needed

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'.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Whether this relationship was purely a friendship or otherwise is not known. Nigel Barley, 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."<ref>Barley, p. 208.</ref> 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.<ref>The White Rajahs of Sarawak: A Borneo Dynasty by Bob Reece (Archipelago Press, 2004)</ref>

Although Brooke died unmarried, he did acknowledge a son to his family in 1858. Neither the identity of the son's mother nor his birth date is clear. This son was brought up as Reuben George Walker in the Brighton household of Frances Walker (1841 and 1851 census, apparently born Template:Circa). By 1858 he was aware of his connection to Brooke and by 1871 he is on the census at the parish of Plumtree, Nottinghamshire as "George Brooke", age "40", birthplace "Sarawak, Borneo". He married Martha Elizabeth Mowbray on 10 July 1862, and had seven children, three of whom survived infancy; the oldest was named James.Template:Citation needed George died travelling to Australia, in the wrecking of the SS British Admiral<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> on 23 May 1874. A memorial to this effect – giving a birthdate of 1834 – is in the churchyard at Plumtree.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Francis William Douglas (1874–1953), the Acting Resident for Brunei and Labuan from November 1913 to January 1915 in a letter to the Foreign Office on 19 July 1915 stated that he heard from Pengiran Anak Hashima that Brooke had been married to her aunt Pengiran Fatima, the daughter of Pengiran Anak Abdul Kadir and also the granddaughter of Muhammad Kanzul Alam, the 21st Sultan of Brunei. Douglas goes on to say that he had met Dr Ogilvie who told him that he had met a daughter of Rajah Brooke's in 1866: she was married but "evidently had foreign blood in her."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

File:Rajah James Brooke.jpg

Rajah James Brooke

Succession, death and burial

Having no legitimate children, in 1861 he formally named his nephew, Captain John Brooke Johnson Brooke, as his successor. Two years later, the Rajah reacted to criticism by returning to the East: after a brief meeting in Singapore, John was deposed and banished from Sarawak. James increased the charges to treasonous conduct and later named John's younger brother, Charles Anthoni Johnson Brooke, as his successor.

File:Brookes graves in Sheepstor.jpg

The red granite chest tomb to James Brooke in Sheepstor churchyard

Brooke died in Burrator, Dartmoor, Devon, in south-west England, on 11 June 1868, having suffered three strokes during his last ten years, and was buried at the graveyard of St Leonard's Church in Sheepstor.

File:Sheepstor Church Devon Nepenthes rajah.JPG

A memorial stained glass window in St Leonard's Church, Sheepstor, dedicated to those from Sarawak who died in World War II. It depicts a butterfly, a moth, and pitcher plants, two of which were named after James Brooke

In popular culture

Fictionalised accounts of Brooke's exploits in Sarawak include Kalimantaan by C.S. Godshalk and The White Rajah by Nicholas Monsarrat. Another book, also called The White Rajah, by Tom Williams, was published by JMS Books in 2010. Brooke is also featured in Flashman's Lady, the 6th book in George MacDonald Fraser's meticulously researched The Flashman Papers novels.

James Brooke is the main antagonist in the second and third novels of Emilio Salgari's Sandokan series. In the 1976 TV production he's played by Adolfo Celi.

Brooke was also a model for the hero of Joseph Conrad's novel Lord Jim, and he is briefly mentioned in Rudyard Kipling's short story "The Man Who Would Be King".

Charles Kingsley dedicated the novel Westward Ho! (1855) to Brooke.

In 1936, Errol Flynn intended to star in a film of Brooke's life called The White Rajah for Warner Bros., based on a script by Flynn himself. However, although the project was announced for filming, it was never made.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In September 2016, a film based on Brooke's life was to be made in Sarawak with the support of Abang Abdul Rahman Johari of the Government of Sarawak, with writer Rob Allyn and Sergei Bodrov as its director. The Brooke Heritage Trust, a non-profit organisation, was to serve as the film's technical advisors, with one of them being Jason Brooke, the current heir of the Brooke family.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The film, titled Edge of the World, directed by Michael Haussman, was released in 2021.

Honours and Arms

British Honours

• KCB: Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, 1848

Arms

Source:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Template:Infobox COA wide

Legacy

Species named after Brooke

Some Bornean plant species were named in Brooke's honour:

• Rhododendron brookeanum, a flowering plant named by Hugh Low and John Lindley,<ref>Template:Citation</ref> now included in Rhododendron javanicum
• Rajah Brooke's pitcher plant (Nepenthes rajah), a pitcher plant named by Joseph Dalton Hooker

also insects:

• Rajah Brooke's birdwing (Trogonoptera brookiana), a butterfly named by Alfred R. Wallace
• Rajah Brooke's stag beetle, Lucanus brookeanus Snellen Van Vollenhoven, 1861 = Odontolabis brookeana, collected by Alfred R. Wallace<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

three species of reptiles:<ref>Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. Template:ISBN. ("Brooke", p. 39).</ref>

• Brooke's house gecko, Hemidactylus brookii
• Brooke's sea snake, Hydrophis brookii
• Brooke's keeled skink, Tropidophorus brookei

and a snail:

• Bertia (Ryssota) brookei (Adams & Reeve, 1848)

Places named after Brooke

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.<ref>Marsh, Edith L. A History of the County of Grey. Owen Sound, Ont.: Fleming, 1931, pp. 210–211.</ref> James Brooke was a close friend of Viscount Bury's uncle, Henry Keppel having met in 1843 while fighting pirates off the coast of Borneo.<ref>Jacob, Gertrude L. The Raja of Saráwak: An Account of Sir James Brooke. London: Macmillan, 1876, vol. 1, ch. XIII.</ref> 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. Both Brooke's Lighthouse and Brooke's Port are historical landmarks in Brooke's Point and are believed to have been constructed by James Brooke. Today, owing to erosion and the constant movement of the tides, only a few stones can still be seen at the Port. The remnants of the original lighthouse tower are still visible, although the area now has a new lighthouse.

Notes

a.Template:Note labelThe term Rajah reflects traditional usage in Sarawak and English writing, although Raja may be better orthography in Malay.

Sources

• Barley, Nigel (2002), White Rajah, Time Warner: London. Template:ISBN.
• Cavendish, Richard, "Birth of Sir James Brooke", History Today. April 2003, Vol. 53, Issue 4.
• Doering, Jonathan. "The Enigmatic Sir James Brooke." Contemporary Review, July 2003. (Book review of White Rajah by Nigel Barley. Little, Brown. Template:ISBN.)
• Jacob, Gertrude Le Grand. The Raja of Saráwak: An Account of Sir James Brooks. K.C.B., LL.D., Given Chiefly Through Letters and Journals. London: MacMillan, 1876.
• Rutter, Owen (ed) Rajah Brooke & Baroness Burdett Coutts. Consisting of the letters from Sir James Brooke to Miss Angela, afterwards Baroness, Burdett Coutts 1935.
• Wason, Charles William. The Annual Register: A Review of Public Events at Home and Abroad for the Year 1868. London: Rivingtons, Waterloo Place, 1869. pp. 162–163.

Further reading

• Foggo, George (1853) Adventures of Sir James Brooke, K.C.B., Rajah of Sarawak, "sovereign de facto of Borneo proper," late governor of Labuan: from Rajah Brooke's own diary and correspondence, or from government official documents, London: Effingham Wilson.
• Hahn, Emily (1953) James Brooke of Sarawak, London, Arthur Barker.
• Ingleson, John (1979) Expanding the empire: James Brooke and the Sarawak lobby, 1839–1868, Nedlands, W.A.: Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Western Australia.
• Payne, Robert (1960) The White Rajahs of Sarawak, Robert Hale.
• Pybus, Cassandra (1996) 'White Rajah: A Dynastic Intrigue' University of Queensland Press.
• Runciman, Steve (1960) The White Rajahs: A History of Sarawak from 1841 to 1946, Cambridge University Press.
• Tarling, Nicholas (1982) The burthen, the risk, and the glory: a biography of Sir James Brooke, Kuala Lumpur; New York: Oxford University Press.