The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society, was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts in relation to Asia." From its incorporation the society has been a forum, through lectures, its journal, and other publications, for scholarship relating to Asian culture and society of the highest level. It is the United Kingdom's senior learned society in the field of Asian studies. Fellows of the society are elected regularly and include highly accomplished and notable scholars of Asian studies; they use the post-nominal letters FRAS.
Henry Nicholas Ridley CMG (1911), MA (Oxon), FRS, FLS, F.R.H.S. was an English botanist, geologist and naturalist who lived much of his life in Singapore. He was instrumental in promoting rubber trees in the Malay Peninsula that led to a level of rapid deforestation, instrumental in the 1926 Great Flood. For the fervour with which he pursued this work he came to be known as "Mad Ridley".
Malaysian legal history has been determined by events spanning a period of some six hundred years. Of these, three major periods were largely responsible for shaping the current Malaysian system. The first was the founding of the Melaka Sultanate at the beginning of the 15th century; second was the spread of Islam in the indigenous culture; and finally, and perhaps the most significant in modern Malaysia, was British colonial rule which brought with it constitutional government and the common law system.
Kapitan China Chung Keng Quee was the founder and administrator of modern Taiping in Perak, Malaysia. Appointed "Capitan China" by the British in 1877, he was a millionaire philanthropist and known as an innovator in the mining of tin. He was involved in many other industries including farming, pawnbroking and logging. He was respected by both Chinese and European communities in the early colonial settlement. His survival in the chaotic era owes much to his standing as leader of the Hai San, a Chinese secret society in British Malaya during the time of the Larut Wars (1862–73), a position he is said to have held until early 1884, although in all probability he continued to remain a leading member. The old fort at Teluk Batu was built by him to safeguard the mine that he opened there.
Seow Poh Leng one of the first few Peranakan Babas at Emerald Hill, was a prominent and successful Singaporean banker, founding member of the Ho Hong Bank, member of the committee of the Straits Settlement, philanthropist and benefactor of public development works. He was a strong advocate of limited liability trading and promoted the advantages of the Limited Liability Company system.
The Larut Wars were a series of four wars that began in July 1861 and ended with the signing of the Pangkor Treaty of 1874. The conflicts were fought among local Chinese secret societies over the control of mining areas in Perak which later involved a rivalry between Raja Abdullah and Ngah Ibrahim, making it a war of succession.
Sir Hugh Charles Clifford, was a British colonial administrator who held several governorships.
Sir Richard Olaf Winstedt, or more commonly R. O. Winstedt, was an English Orientalist and colonial administrator with expertise in British Malaya.
Malaysia's armed forces, which encompasses three major branches, originate from the formation of local military forces in the first half of the 20th century, during British colonial rule of Malaya and Singapore prior to Malaya's independence in 1957. The branches have undergone several restructuring, but fundamentally includes the army, navy and air force.
Tan Sri Zainal Abidin bin Ahmad or better known by the moniker Za'aba, was a Malaysian writer and linguist. He modernised the Malay language with the publication of a series of grammar books entitled Pelita Bahasa in 1936 at the Sultan Idris Training College. The book contained guidelines in modernising the structure of classical Malay, transforming it into the language that is in use today: the most significant change was the switch from the conventional passive to the modern active form of syntax.
George Cathcart Woolley was a British colonial administrator in North Borneo in the early part on the twentieth century. Woolley was also an ethnographer and an ardent collector, and the Woolley Collections of photographs, diaries and other artefacts, bequeathed to the State Government of Sabah, formed the nucleus of Sabah Museum when it was founded in 1965.
Richard James Wilkinson was a British colonial administrator, scholar of Malay, and historian. The son of a British consul, Richard James Wilkinson was born in 1867 in Salonika (Thessaloniki) in the Ottoman Empire. He studied at Felsted School and was an undergraduate of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was multilingual and had a command of French, German, Greek, Italian and Spanish, and later, Malay and Hokkien which he qualified in, in 1889, while a cadet after joining the Straits Settlements Civil Service. He was an important contributor to the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JMBRAS). On 7 November 1900 Wilkinson presented a collection of Malay manuscripts and printed books to the University of Cambridge Library. He was appointed CMG in 1912.
The Brunei Malay language, also called Bruneian Malay language, is the most widely spoken language in Brunei and a lingua franca in some parts of Sarawak and Sabah, such as Labuan, Limbang, Lawas, Sipitang and Papar. Though Standard Malay is promoted as the official national language of Brunei, Brunei Malay is socially dominant and it is currently replacing the minority languages of Brunei, including the Dusun and Tutong languages, existing in a diglossic speech, wherein Brunei Malay is commonly used for daily communication, coexisting with the aforementioned regional languages and Malay creoles, and standard Malay used in formal speech; code switching between standard Malay and Brunei Malay is spoken in informal speech as a lingua franca between Malay creoles and regional languages. It is quite similar to Standard Malay to the point of being almost mutually intelligible with it, being about 84% cognate with standard Malay. Standard Malay is usually spoken with Brunei pronunciation.
The Malaysia Agreement, or the Agreement relating to Malaysia between United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Federation of Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore (MA63) was a legal document which agreed to combine North Borneo (Sabah), Sarawak, and Singapore with the existing states of Malaya, the resulting union being named Malaysia. Signed in London, United Kingdom, the agreement has been in effect since 16 September 1963; Singapore was subsequently expelled from Malaysia not long after this agreement, becoming a sovereign state on 9 August 1965.
Bible translations into the languages of Indonesia and Malaysia have a lot of common history up until the modern era. Apart from the shared Malay language which historically was the lingua franca of the Malay Archipelago and forms the basis for the national languages of Indonesia and Malaysia today, portions of the Bible have been translated into a variety of indigenous languages in the region.
Emily or Emma Sadka was an Iraqi-Singaporean historian and researcher specialising in the Political History of the Malayan region, which she taught at the University of Malaya (Singapore) and in Australian universities.
The Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (MBRAS) is a learned society based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
John Michael Gullick was a British Orientalist who is chiefly remembered for his ground-breaking contributions to the study of pre-colonial and early colonial Malay society, Indigenous Political Systems of Western Malaya (1958), Malay Society in the Late Nineteenth Century: The Beginnings of Change (1987) and Rulers and Residents: Influence and Power in the Malay States 1870–1920 (1992).
Sir Roland St. John Braddell was a historian and colonial adviser in British Malaya. He was considered "one of Malaya's foremost legal authorities".
The Transfer of the Straits Settlements was the official handover of the colonies of Penang, Singapore, and Malacca from the British India Office over to the British Colonial Office on 1 April 1867. This transfer was initiated with the passing of the Government of the Straits Settlements Act in 1866, thus assigning the Straits Settlements crown colony status.
