William Farquhar Correspondence and Other 19th Century Malay Letters Now Online at the Library of Congress

via the Library of Congress, 25 January 2021: William Farquhar was the first British Resident of Singapore and ancestor of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. His correspondence provide an insight to the politics of the early 19th century in Southeast Asia. The collection can be accessed here.

The Library of Congress today announced the digitization of 46 Malay letters from the 19th century, mainly from Malay kings and Southeast Asian notables to William Farquhar, a pioneering British colonial administrator in Singapore (1819-1823), providing online access to an important resource on the founding of that country.

The digitization comes ahead of the 202nd anniversary of the signing of the Singapore Treaty, which greenlighted plans for the British East India Company to establish a trading post there, a pivotal moment in that country´s history. The treaty was signed on Feb. 6, 1819, by Sir Stamford Raffles, Sultan Hussein Shah and Temenggong Abdul Rahman.

Source: William Farquhar Correspondence and Other 19th Century Malay Letters Now Online at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress