page_title: Stamford Raffles
section_title: Rule
hierarchical_section_title: Stamford Raffles / Java / Rule
caption_attribution_description: English: Negative. Memorial to Olivia Mariamne Fancourt (née Devenish), the first wife of Thomas Stamford Raffles, erected by him along the Kanarielaan in the National Botanical Gardens (now the Bogor Botanical Gardens) that he founded in Buitenzorg (now Bogor), West Java, Indonesia. Olivia died in Java on 26 November 1814. Nederlands: Negatief. Gedenksteen van T.S. Raffles, de oprichter van 's Lands Plantentuin, voor zijn vrouw O.M. Raffles langs de Kanarielaan in 's Lands Plantentuin te Buitenzorg, West-Java
context_page_description: Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles, FRS was a British statesman, Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies and Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen, best known for his founding of modern Singapore and the Straits Settlements.
  He was heavily involved in the capture of the Indonesian island of Java from the Dutch during the Napoleonic Wars and the running of day-to-day operations on Singapore. He also wrote The History of Java.
context_section_description: During the relatively brief British rule in Java, Raffles negotiated peace and mounted some significant military expeditions against local Javanese princes to subjugate them to British rule. Most significant of these was the assault on Yogyakarta on 21 June 1812; Yogyakarta was one of the two most powerful indigenous polities in Java. During the attack, the Yogyakarta kraton was badly damaged and extensively looted by British troops. Raffles seized much of the contents of the court archive. The event was unprecedented in Javanese history. It was the first time an indigenous court had been taken by storm by a European army, and the humiliation of the local aristocracy was profound. 
  Although peace returned to Central Java in the immediate aftermath of the British assault, the events may have fuelled the deep-seated instability and hostility to European involvement that ultimately gave rise to the Java War of the 1820s. Raffles also ordered an expedition to Palembang in Sumatra to unseat the local sultan, Mahmud Badaruddin II, and to seize the nearby Bangka Island to set up a permanent British presence in the area in the case of the return of Java to Dutch rule after the end of the War of the Sixth Coalition in Europe.
  During his lieutenant-governorship, Raffles placed some restrictions on the local slave trade in line with wider British policy across its Asian territories, although slavery remained widespread and Raffles himself was served by a large retinue of slaves at his official residences in Java. Raffles also attempted a replacement of the Dutch system of forced agricultural deliveries in kind with a cash-based land tenure system of land management, probably influenced by the earlier writings of Dirk van Hogendorp (1761–1822).
  Under Raffles's aegis, a large number of ancient monuments in Java were systematically catalogued for the first time. The first detailed English-language account of Prambanan was prepared by Colin Mackenzie, while the Buddhist temple of Borobudur was surveyed and cleared of vegetation by H. C. Cornelius.
  Under the harsh conditions of the island, his wife, Olivia, died on 26 November 1814, an event that devastated Raffles. In 1815, he left again for England shortly before the island of Java was returned to control of the Netherlands following the Napoleonic Wars, under the terms of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814. Raffles had been removed from his post by the East India Company ahead of the handover and officially replaced by John Fendall on account of the poor financial performance of the colony during his administration and allegations of financial impropriety on his own part. He sailed to England in early 1816 to clear his name and, en route, visited Napoleon, who was in exile at St. Helena, but found him unpleasant and unimpressive.
caption: The memorial to Olivia Mariamne Raffles, Raffles' first wife, erected by him along the Kanarielaan in the National Botanical Gardens (now the Bogor Botanical Gardens). Raffles re-landscaped these gardens, which were established in 1744 in Buitenzorg (now Bogor), West Java.
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