Richard James Wilkinson

Richard James Wilkinson CMG (born May 29, 1867 in Saloniki , Greece , † December 5, 1941 in Izmir , Turkey ) was a British scholar and colonial administrator with special knowledge of British Malaya .

Early life and education

Richard James Wilkinson was born in Salonika on May 29, 1867, the son of the British diplomat Richard Wilkinson and his wife Jane. Due to his father's activity, he spent the first years of his life in Greece and in Malage. He received his education at the Felsted School, Essex and his academic training at Trinity College , Cambridge , where he received several awards. His intention to enter the colonial service for India as a civil servant failed, however, because of the necessary riding test, which he did not pass. Instead, he joined the public administration of the Federated Malay States in 1889 . The tasks assigned to him were not very satisfactory and so in 1895 he submitted a transfer to China. To persuade the talented young man to stay, the Governor Sir William George Maxwell offered him the position of Secretary of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society .

In 1896 he became Acting Director of Education in Penang, that is, head of the school board. From 1898 to 1900 he was the Acting Inspector General of Schools of the Straits Settlements in Singapore. After a year as District Officer of Dindings, Perak (1902-1903) he was appointed school inspector for the Federated Malay States. In 1905 he went on his one-year home leave. Back in Malaya, he was Secretary General of the British Resident in Perak , Ernest Woodford Birch, from 1906 to 1910 .

Later professional life

After a brief interlude as a British resident in Negeri Sembilan in the years 1910–1911, he became colonial secretary of the Straits Settlements in Singapore. Although this did not correspond to his core competencies at all, he turned out to be a capable authority manager in his new role. In 1911 and again in 1914 he was acting governor. After Britain declared war on Germany, he maintained public order and organized the food supply and the tin industry.

In 1912 he married Edith Baird.

On March 9, 1916, he assumed the post of governor of Sierra Leone and left Malaya, a decision that he later regretted. On May 4, 1922, he retired and moved with his wife to Mytilene on the island of Lesbos . When the troops of the German Reich in Greece invaded , he fled to Izmir in Turkey, where he died on 5 December 1941st

Achievements

Although Wilkinson distinguished himself through his special skills in the colonial secretariat and as a school inspector, his outstanding achievement remains the creation of the classic Malay-English dictionaries that are still valid today and his contributions to Malay ethnology.

In 1900 Wilkinson initiated the establishment of the Malay Training College in Melakka, which is regarded as the forerunner of the Sultan Idris Training College (SITC) in Tanjung Malim, Perak, which was inaugurated in 1922.

In 1905 he founded the Malay Residential School , later known as Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) became known

For his achievements he was accepted as a Companion in the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1912 .

Selected Works

• The education of Asiatics , 1901
• Code for grant-in-aid schools and departmental instruction to inspecting officers , 1905
• with C. Snouck Hurgronje, Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan: The Achehnese , EJ Brill, 1906
• Malay beliefs , Luzac & Co, 1906
• Malay literature , FMS Government Press, 1907
• Kesah pĕlayaran Abdullah , (The Travels of Munshi Abdullah), 1907
• Malay literature part III: Malay proverbs on Malay character , 1907
• Papers on Malay Subjects: Law, Part 1-2: Introductory Sketch and the Ninety-Nine Laws of Perak , 1907-1908
• The incidents of Malay life , J. Russell, FMS Govt. Press, 1908
• Life and Customs, Part 1: The Incidents of Malay Life (1908)
• An Abridged Malay-English Dictionary (romanized) , FMS Government Press, 1908
• Notes on the Negri Sembilan , FMS Government Press, 1911
• with Richard Winstedt: Malay grammar , The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1913
• with Richard Winstedt: Pantun Melayu , 1914
• A vocabulary of central Sakai , J. Brown, Federated Malay States Govt. Press, 1915
• A history of the peninsular Malays, with chapters on Perak & Selangor , Kelly & Walsh 1920
• with Richard Winstedt: An English-Malay dictionary: roman characters , 1932, republished by Kelly & Walsh, 1939
• with Richard Winstedt: A history of Perak , Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1934

literature

• 7 letters from Richard James Wilkinson to Oscar Browning
• Clifford Edmund Bosworth: A century of British orientalists 1902-2001 , British Academy

Web links

• RJ Wilkinson: scholar, historian and administrator

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} The Straits Times: A Monument Of Malay Scholarship ( Memento of the original from August 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , August 14, 1932, p. 12; Accessed February 6, 2013 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Duncan Sutherland: Richard James Sutherland ( Memento of the original from March 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Biographical Entry on Singapore Infopedia; Accessed February 6, 2013 
3. ↑ Colonies, General: Original Correspondence CO 323/689/19, 1915, National Archives, UK
4. ^ Colonies, General: Original Correspondence CO 323/893/7, 1922, National Archives, UK
5. ^ Soda Naoki: The Malay World in Textbooks: The Transmission of Colonial Knowledge in British Malaya , Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 39, No. September 2, 2001
6. ↑ Johan Khasnor: Educating the Malay elite: the Malay College Kuala Kangsar, 1905-1941 , pp. 41-49, Kuala Lumpur: Pustaka Antara, 1996

Remarks

1. ↑ However, he did not write his final thesis for a Bachelor of Arts (BA) until 1901.