British Colonial Residents in Malaya: Academic Activity of Administrative Scholars in the 1870s–1890s

This article analyses the research activities of the first British residents in Malaya during the establishment of the British indirect rule system in this region. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the results of research of the Malay Peninsula and its indigenous population in the 1870s–1890s and to show that the scholarly work of collecting and classifying information was one of the important colonial mechanisms for establishing imperial power and British expansion. The article provides a wide range of sources (including monographs by F. Swettenham, H. Clifford, W. Maxwell, W. Treacher, and other residents, English-Malay dictionaries, reports on British expeditions on the peninsula, folklore materials collected by residents and comments on them, etc.). Of particular importance as a source is the archive of the journal of the Straits Settlements Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, which published academic articles, reports, and translated materials from residents of the Malay states, as well as British explorers and travellers. Analysis of these sources makes it possible to conclude that the first residents represented a unique combination of administrative power and scholarly research groups. Their efforts to collect and classify information about the region provided the necessary basis for Britain’s further colonial expansion. At the same time, fearing the inevitable changes during European colonization, they made a great contribution to the preservation and accumulation of information about the life of the indigenous peoples of the Malay Peninsula, their customs and traditions, language and cultural norms.