William Clark Cowie

William Clark Cowie

WC Cowie with the Sultan of Sulu

WC Cowie on expedition

William Clark Cowie (born April 8, 1849 in Friockheim , Forfarshire , † September 14, 1910 in Bad Nauheim ) was a Scottish engineer, adventurer, arms smuggler and general manager of the British North Borneo Company .

Life

Private life

William Clark Cowie was born as the eldest of four children on April 8, 1849, the son of the flax manufacturer David Cowie (1825-1896) and Ann Cowie b. Leitch (1819–1906) was born in Friockheim, Scotland, where his maternal ancestors have lived for generations. William has three siblings; Mary, Andson and Edward.

Little is known of his youth in Scotland. The family moves to Arbroath on the Scottish coast. His father takes up a position there as managing director in the canvas factory Wardmill Works of MC Thomson & Co. There, WC Cowie received his training as an engineer. Even before that, he received private tuition with the aim of following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who, as an engineer, ran one of the first spinning mills in Scotland.

Around 1873 he married Flora Davidson with whom he had two children, Flora de Cruz, born in 1874, and their son William Anson Edward Cowie de Cruz, born in 1875.

After the early death of his wife Flora - she dies at the age of 25 shortly after the birth of his son - he remarries between 1886 and 1887. With his second wife Army Constance Pead he again has two children; the daughter Muara Gladys (born 1888) and the son Andson Gordon (born 1891).

In 1893 a dictionary of the Sulu and Malai languages ​​appears under the authorship of William Clark Cowie and his brother Andson; Andson Cowie has been dead for five years at this point.

Career until 1878

In April 1870, William Clark Cowie hired as chief engineer on the Argyle under Captain Peter Orr and left Glasgow for Singapore on his 21st birthday. There he leads the life of an adventurer in the pirate-infested waters of the Malay islands. This ends at the end of 1872 when Cowie is hired by Carl Schomburgk as captain of the Far East and commissioned to break the Spanish naval blockade in order to handle an arms deal with the Sultan of Sulu, the ruler of North Borneo. The coup succeeds and lays the foundation for a deep friendship between Cowie and the Sultan of Sulu.

Cowie convinced the grateful sultan that lasting success in overcoming the Spanish blockade was only guaranteed if he could fall back on a safe haven. There he could wait until the shipping route to Sulu was free of Spanish warships. The Sultan then gave Cowie permission to set up a transshipment depot for his goods on Pulau Timbang in Sandakan Bay on Borneo. Cowie next founded the Labuan Trading Company with two friends - Carl Schomburgk and John Dill Ross - whose main job is to continue to undermine the Spanish naval blockade and bring weapons, opium, tobacco and other contraband to Sulu. The company is successful; none of his ships were ever seized by the Spaniards.

In March 1882 Cowie buys a designed 40-year concession for the exploitation of in Brunei nearby coal fields of Muara and founded the COWIE BROTHERS, based in Singapore. From Labuan - he has leased his own shipping pier there for 99 years - he ships his coal. On July 12, 1887, Cowie transferred his concession rights to the British North Borneo Company and returned to England with his family as a reasonably wealthy man. Charles Brooke, who later bought the mine, renamed the place Brooketon (now Brooke Town ).

North Borneo Chartered Company

In 1878 Baron Overbeck and Alfred Dent approach Cowie. Knowing about the friendly relations between the Sultan and Cowie, they ask him for his services in arranging land concessions. Cowie agrees, since he himself has plans to occupy the country and since the political situation is favorable for unilateral agreements with the Sultan of Sulu: In expectation that he will soon be forced to cede his land to the Spaniards, it appears to the Sultan advantageous to lease parts of his land to foreign powers. His expectation is that in this case the Spaniards will avoid diplomatic entanglements with the interests of other colonial powers. In this precarious situation, the Sultan succeeded in convincing the land surrender on January 22nd, 1878. For an annual lease of 1,000 pounds, Overbeck and Dent receive full sovereignty and territorial rights over their properties in Borneo, including the islands that belong to them. The rights from this lease were transferred to the newly founded British North Borneo Company in 1881 .

Opening of the North Borneo Railway in 1898

Cowies and Dent cross paths again in 1887. William Clark Cowie is commissioned with Edmund Ernest Everett to manage the company's business in Borneo.

In 1890, Cowie sought a concession from the North Borneo Chartered Company to build a railway line from the west coast to Sandakan. The ambitious idea was not realized because Cowie was unable to raise the necessary financial resources. The North Borneo Chartered Company, however, becomes friends with the idea of ​​building a railway through this event and elects Cowie to the board of directors in 1894. His mission: to find a logistical solution for transporting the tobacco. Construction of the North Borneo Railway begins in 1896 .

Appreciated for his extensive knowledge of the country and the people of Borneo, he was promoted to general director in 1897. In this capacity he returned to North Borneo in 1898 and met with Mat Salleh in order to bring about a peaceful solution to the so-called Mat Salleh Rebellion .

On October 15, 1909, after Sir Charles Jessel's retirement , he became Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Towards the end of his life, Cowie suffers from heart disease. In July 1910 he traveled to Germany to undergo an operation.

William Clark Cowie died on September 14, 1910 in Bad Nauheim. He will be buried on September 23rd. His headstone in Charlton Cemetery near Blackheath says:

By his instrumentality 31000 square miles of territory in British North Borneo were added to the British Empire. His indomitable zeal and enthusiasm displayed in the interests of the British North Borneo Company were the means of raising it to prosperity

criticism

Up until after the Second World War, nobody dared to shake the colonial sense of mission of Cowie and the North Borneo Company. The Times Magazine of 1946 still reads: "Cowie as one of the directors of the new British North Borneo Company moved into a mud hut and watched over the natives with a keen eye. The company appointed its own governor, cabinet and judge to protect civilization to the steep, wild mountains of the island. "

literature

• Volker Schult: Desire and Reality - German-Filipino Relations in the Context of Global Entanglements 1860-1945 , Logos Verlag Berlin, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8325-1898-1
• KG Tregonning: "A History Of Modern Sabah (North Borneo 1881-1963)", 2nd edition, University of Malaya Press, Kuala Lumpur, 1965, reprint 1967

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Genealogical pages of the Kroll & FitzGerald families
2. ^ ^{A b} The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1884-1942): MR. W. CLARK COWIE.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , August 9, 1895, page 3; Accessed March 31, 2013  
3. ↑ ^{a b c} The Straits Times , Jan 30, 1902, p. 5
4. ↑ Andson Cowie, William Clark Cowie: "English-Sulu-Malay Vocabulary: With Useful Sentences, Tables, Etc." Kessinger Publishing's Photocopy Edition, 1893
5. ↑ Schult, page 28
6. ^ The Straits Times , Oct. 22, 1910, p. 7
7. ^ ^{A b c} Owen Rutter: British North Borneo - An Account of its History, Ressources and Nativer Tribes , Constable & Company Ltd, London, 1922
8. ↑ ^{a b} BORNEO: Sunset on the Sulu Sea in: Time Magazine, issue July 1, 1946, accessed June 7, 2011
9. ↑ The Straits Times , April 8, 1885, page 3  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ The Straits Times, January 27, 1885, page 3  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
11. ↑ Straits Times Weekly Issue , March 19, 1883, page 3  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ↑ ^{a b} Straits Times Weekly Issue, September 21, 1887, page 4  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
13. ↑ Tregonning, page 53
14. ↑ Straits Times Weekly Issue, July 16, 1890, page 8  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
15. ↑ Cowie's speech on July 5, 1892, quoted in: The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1884-1942), August 3, 1892, page 2  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically created as marked defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
16. ↑ ^{a b} The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1884-1942), October 11, 1910, page 5  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
17. ^ The Straits Times, Oct. 15, 1909, p. 7
18. ^ The Straits Times, Sep. 17, 1910, p. 7

Remarks

1. ↑ Translation: His participation added 31,000 square miles of land in British North Borneo to the British Empire. His indomitable pursuit and zeal shown for the interests of the British North Borneo Company were the path that led them to prosperity.