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Historical person

Thomas Stamford Raffles

1781–1826

Thomas Stamford Raffles was a British colonial administrator best known for establishing Singapore as an East India Company trading settlement in 1819. He had earlier governed Java during the British occupation and promoted administrative, scientific and antiquarian projects, while remaining part of an imperial system founded on conquest and unequal commercial power.

His later years were marked by disputes with the company and by the development of his natural-history collections. Thomas Stamford Raffles was born in Jamaica and died in London.

In Christopher Nicole’s Pearl of the Orient, It’s not long before he senses a chance to set himself up forever after crossing paths with Stamford Raffles, a visionary young colonial official who dreams of conquests to expand Britain’s growing empire. In Patrick O’Brian’s The Nutmeg of Consolation, Stranded after the loss of Diane, Aubrey and Maturin build a small vessel and survive an attack before reaching British-held Batavia. Stamford Raffles supplies Jack with a captured ship, renamed Nutmeg of Consolation, for the voyage toward Australia. Pursuit by a French frigate gives way to the penal colony of New South Wales, where Stephen investigates abuses of authority and Jack confronts colonial politics. In Julian Stockwin’s To the Eastern Seas, the campaign promises control of spice routes and the removal of enemy bases that threaten British India, but commanders disagree over whether to seize isolated islands or strike directly at Java. Stamford Raffles argues for the larger operation, and Kydd supports a strategy that combines naval force with colonial ambition.

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Thomas Stamford Raffles (3 series)

Aubrey–Maturin Novels in Order

by Patrick O’Brian 21 books 4.5(73,173)

The Aubrey–Maturin novels follow Royal Navy officer Jack Aubrey and surgeon, naturalist and intelligence agent Stephen Maturin from the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France through the War of 1812 and the first years after Waterloo. Across twenty completed novels, their friendship links shipboard command, espionage, science, domestic…

All books in this series

Pearl of the Orient in Order

by Christopher Nicole 3 books 4.4(1,162)

The Pearl of the Orient saga charts the growth of Singapore and the trading families connected to it. Teng Lee and Stamford Raffles operate amid the Anglo-Dutch struggle in Southeast Asia; Michael Harrington moves from India into the opium trade and war in China; and Larry Cairns enters…

All books in this series

Thomas Kydd in Order

by Julian Stockwin 27 books 4.2(24,001)

The Thomas Kydd series follows a Guildford wig-maker pressed into the Royal Navy in 1793 and traces his rise from inexperienced landsman to admiral. Across twenty-seven novels, Kydd learns the work of the lower deck, crosses to the quarterdeck and commands increasingly important ships during the French Revolutionary…

All books in this series