Customer Reviews

The Duke of Puddledock: Travels in the Footsteps of Stamford Raffles

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In this modern day journey in the footseteps of Stamford Raffles, Britain's premier imperialist in southeast Asia, Nigel Barley injects his customary humor into both history and travelogue. Barley's hilarious books on anthropology are recalled in his wry humorous history of Raffles (founder of Singapore and namesake of the still-standing hotel there that served as the principal watering hole of England's expats) and even more humorous record of Barley's travels in his footsteps.

In Singapore, Raffles is something of a patron saint. A shopping center carries his name, a subway station, a school, a hotel, and even the business class of Singapore Airlines has been branded "Raffles Class."

It comes as a bit of a surprise, then, that the city of Singapore features prominently in only one short chapter in Nigel Barley's "In the Footsteps of Stamford Raffles," which is the title of the English edition I have read. Penguin Books has probably realized that the title "The Duke of Puddle Dock" (a moniker evoking Raffles's humble background and high ambitions) is a bit unfortunate when it comes to marketing this hybrid between a travel book and a biography.

By far the largest part of the book deals with Indonesia. Barley interweaves accounts of his travels with biographical pieces about Raffles and Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia after the country became independent after World War II. Barley quotes extensively from the primary biographical material he used for the book. Both the "woven" structure and the long quotes make it difficult for the reader to really become engrossed in the life of Raffles. Perhaps Barley wanted to create some distance between the modern reader and his 18th century subject. In this case, however, the distance becomes such a gap that it is easy for the reader to lose interest in the book itself.

The Raffles who emerges from this book is most of all a man longing for recognition; a paternalistic officer of the British East India Company, good natured, benevolent, optimistic, learned, not very good at handling opposition, but very open-minded about what he sees in the Far East. Humanistic and dedicated to accumulating knowledge, he is not even thwarted by the loss of three of his four children or of all his treasures. When the ship on which he wanted to return to England sank off the coast of Sumatra, he lost his entire natural history collection: "One hundred and twenty-two cases of 'curiosities' were destroyed as well as all Raffles's papers. It was enough to break most men. But, as always, his greatest comfort was the love shown by his former subjects. The morning after their return to Bengkulu he began to redraw the maps he had been working on for years and sent locals into the forests to begin collecting specimens anew." (255) When Raffles finally returned to England and died at the age of 45, he left almost nothing. "Raffles had been unusual in spending freely on science and learning and had never stinted on creature comforts and hospitality, signs not of love of luxury but rather largeness of spirit." (264)

Barley is an entertaining writer with a fine sense of humor. Had he devoted more space to the historical background of the late 18th century and England's emerging imperialism in South East Asia, I would have enjoyed the book even more. One thing to remember from this book, though, is definitely Barley's description of the Durian, a local fruit beloved by Singaporeans for its taste and prestigious price: "the fruit like a football-sized conker, whose taste is halfway between caramel and swamp-water, with an after-whiff of rancid armpits." (135)

On the remote chance that anyone reading this review also actually plans to read this obscure book, I urge you to pay heed to the full title: "The Duke of Puddle Dock. Travels in the Footsteps of Stamford Raffles". The book is far more about the unfocused self-indulgent ramblings and musings of the author, describing his travels in southeast Asia, than it is about the ostensible subject, Sir Stamford Raffles. Keep in mind also that the author is an anthropologist who unapologetically despises the group of Homo sapiens called tourists, with a particular bias against Aussie tourists. The book takes the form of interspersed brief descriptions of Raffles' life and times, similarly brief quotations from Raffles' own writings or those of his contemporaries who knew him, and much more protracted descriptions of Dr. Barley's experiences in trying to find surviving traces of Raffles in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Most of the places the author describes in the book sound interesting, if you can get past all the anthropological observations about the specific inhabitants he encounters or the general cultures he experiences. Sometimes his observations are amusing. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call them witty, as the writer of the book's dust jacket trumpets. For an example of his dry humor, I quote from Chapter 12: Empires of the Imagination. "He held out an arm decorated with a great X of sticking plaster, as in a children's comic. Either scholarship was taken more seriously here than in England or other forces had been in play. I could not remember the last time one of my lectures had ended in a knife fight." Try never! The author tries hard, almost too hard at times, to portray himself as the objective, non-judgmental observer of the citizens of the countries he visits, while simultaneously exposing himself as highly judgmental toward all visitors except himself.

It was pure stubbornness, and a misbegotten hope that the book would improve, that led me to keep slogging until I finished it. I came away feeling as though I had learned less than nothing useful about Raffles the person, or his life - the little about him that could be gleaned from the book was so scattered both in spacing throughout the text, and in chronology of Raffles' life, that it was confusing more than enlightening. The comparisons between Raffles and Sukarno that dominated a portion of the book seemed forced, a thinly disguised excuse for plopping Barley's observations about Sukarno into the text. And by the end of the book I felt I had learned almost nothing useful about modern southeast Asia either. My rating of 2 stars for this colossal waste of time is only for the flashes of humor to be found in it...truly insufficient reason for anyone to invest their time reading this book. If ever there was a case of a book being over-hyped in descriptions on Amazon and in the book's dust jacket, this is it.

(The above review was also posted to my LibraryThing catalog. It is based on the Henry Holt 1992 hardcover edition, which lacked the photographs which apparently accompany some printings, but did not suffer from the poor type-setting referred to in other reviews.)

I have read the Monsoon Books (Singapore) edition of Barley's "In the footsteps of Stamford Raffles". The book is great, informative,humourous with an empathetic, loving and ironical approach to today's Indonesia. However, the editing is awful. The text is ridden with typos, extra letters, full stops in the middle of sentences. Clearly this was not proofread and the poor quality of editing does not do honour to the quality of the book. How on earth would a publisher publish such a "draft" is beyond comprehension. Mr. Barley, please do something!!

Raffles cigarettes, Raffles Business Class, the Raffles Hotel are all named after Thomas Stamford Raffles, one of the most important Englishmen in Southeast Asia of his time, but now largely forgotten. How many British know that Britain ruled Java for 5 years? How many Indonesians know why they drive on the left?

Nigel Barley, the English anthropologist, and Indonesian specialist, has written an extremely readable account of Raffles' life and achievements, interspersed with fascinating parallels from Indonesia's first President Sukarno's life story. Both came from poor families, both were intelligent, both liked books and both visited the same places. Raffles had only two years of proper schooling.

Raffles was born in 1781 on a ship in Jamaica, joined the English East India Company at the age of 14, as the lowest form of clerk, and worked in London until he was sent to Penang in Malaya in 1803. By the time the six month sea voyage was over, he had taught himself Malay. As Assistant Secretary to the Governor of Penang, he did all the important jobs and in his spare time researched local history and customs. Raffles liked the people and respected them.

In 1808 the Company transferred him to Malacca, further down south, to gather intelligence about Java. England was at war with Napoleon and worried that the French fleet would use the Dutch colony of Java. The English blockaded Java. The French, who were in nominal control, quickly surrendered to the British army. The victory was hardly noticed back in Europe.

At the age of 30 Raffles found himself the sole ruler of Java, whose civilisation he found enchanting. He was the Lieutenant-Governor and set about changing everything. The first thing he did was abolish torture, which was part of the Dutch judicial process. The Dutch believed in monoplies. Raffles believed in free trade. He revised the customs regulations entirely. Java's finances were in chaos. The Dutch had little interest in the welfare of the people, but Raffles ruled like a benevolent dictator. He abolished the importation of slaves and reduced the local rulers' powers. Living in the National Palace in Bogor, he created the Botanical Gardens. Later he discovered the World's largest flower, which was named Rafflesia arnoldii after him. The island was surveyed for a new land tax. As a result Borobudor, the largest Buddhist temple in the World, was "discovered" outside Yogyakarta. He even bothered to work out the traffic regulations and followed the English rule of driving on the left. The Dutch drive on the right but they were not concerned with such matters.

With the defeat of Napoleon Raffles and Java were unimportant and he was fired. He was not even allowed to supervise the transfer of power back to Holland. Exhausted he returned to England with 30 tons of luggage, many pieces of which are now in British museums, such as the Raffles Collection of the British Museum. Interested in everything and a true scholar he wrote the monumental The History of Java, which is still in print. He was knighted, became a Fellow of the Royal Society and married for the second time. After 30 months, in 1818 he was back in Indonesia and given the Company post in Bengkulu in Sumatra.

Raffles enjoyed his time in Bengkulu. His new wife gave him four children. He abolished gambling, freed up the pepper trade and set up schools. He visited the ancient city of Singapura and secured his greatest triumph - the founding of Singapore in 1819. The good times, however, were not to last - three of his children died. Raffles and his wife were also dangerously ill. He had a brain tumour, which was to kill him in six years.

Desperate to leave in 1824 they had to wait three months for a ship home. Their clothes and 122 boxes of research papers, animals, plants and books took up a third of the vessel. After a day at sea, the ship caught fire and they lost everything. It was the greatest blow ever to Malay literary studies. He eventually made it back to London and despite ill-health established the London Zoo and became the first President of the Zoological Society.

In 1826 Raffles' Javanese bank went bankrupt and he lost most of his capital. Then the Company presented him with a bill for £20,000 for accounting irregularities. To cap it all they demanded repayment of the expenses in founding Singapore. Raffles died later that year. The Company were surprised that he had so little money and reduced their claim against his estate to £10,000, thereby leaving his widow with nothing.

Nigel Barley retraces Raffles' steps, including visits to Nias and Bali, and entertainingly recounts stories of the people he meets along the way. The book is also a modern travelogue. Raffles accomplished a lot during his short lifespan of 44 years. I recommend this book warmly.

Murni
Ubud, Bali