James Brooke
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Sir James Brooke (29 April 1803 – 11 June 1868) was born in Coombe Grove, near Bath, to an English father and a Scottish mother. He was educated at Norwich School, England and became the first White Rajah of Sarawak.
Brooke travelled to Burma with the army of the British East India Company in 1825, was wounded, and sent to England for recovery. In 1830, he arrived back in Madras too late to rejoin the service.
He attempted to trade in the Far East, but was not successful. In 1835, his father died and left him £30,000, which he used as capital to purchase a ship, The Royalist. After setting sail for Borneo in 1838, he arrived in Kuching in August of the same year to find the settlement facing a Dayak uprising against the Sultan of Brunei. Offering his aid to the Sultan, he and his crew helped bring about a peaceful settlement and was granted the title of Rajah of Sarawak by the Sultan, due to the fact that he threatened the Sultan with military force (although the official declaration was not made until August 18 1841).
Brooke began to establish and cement his rule over Sarawak; reforming the administration, codifying laws and fighting piracy, which proved to be an ongoing issue throughout his rule. Brooke returned temporarily to England in 1847, where he was given the freedom of the city of London, appointed governor and commander-in-chief of Labuan, British consul-general in Borneo and was created a KCB.
Brooke became the centre of controversy in 1851 when accusations of misconduct against him led to the appointment of a royal commission in Singapore. As the result of its investigation the charges were not proven but the accusations continued to haunt Brooke.
He ruled Sarawak until his death in 1868, following three strokes over a period of ten years. He was succeeded as Rajah by his nephew, Charles Johnson Brooke.
A fictionalised account of James Brooke's exploits in Sarawak is given in C. S. Godshalk's novel Kalimantaan. Brooke is also featured in Flashman's Lady, the 6th book in George MacDonald Fraser's meticulously researched Flashman novels and in Sandokan: The Pirates of Malaysia, (I pirati della Malesia) the second novel in Emilio Salgari's Sandokan series.
James Brooke was a model for Lord Jim in Joseph Conrad's novel Lord Jim.
The tropical pitcher plant species Nepenthes rajah was named in his honour by Joseph Dalton Hooker.
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