L.A. Mills’ incomparable classic British Malaya 1824 – 1867 was first published in 1925, an original and extraordinarily perceptive work by a relatively young scholar on what was then one of the British Empire’s most profitable colonial possessions. It was reissued in the JMBRAS in 1960 and since then it has been unavailable for many years until this reprint was once again brought forth. One of the first serious historical works on colonial Malaya, it is a landmark study of the development of British influence through the Straits Settlements of Singapore, Malacca and Penang on the Malay Peninsula, in the middle years of the nineteenth century. The study concludes in 1867, the year in which the administration of the Straits Settlements was transferred from the India Office to the Colonial Office.

The Author:

Lennox Algernon Mills (1896 – 1968) was an American academic and specialist in Southeast Asia who wrote extensively on British colonial rule in the Empire’s Eastern possessions. Mills had the rare distinction of being awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in the area of Political Science on three separate occasions: in 1936, 1957 and 1959 respectively. Mills’ other works – characterised by the same meticulous research and extraordinary insight that was visible in British Malaya 1824 – 1867 – include Ceylon Under British Rule 1795 – 1932(London, 1933), British Rule in Eastern Asia(London, 1942), Malaya: A Political and Economic Appraisal(Minneapolis, 1958) and Southeast Asia: Illusion and Reality in Politics and Economics(Minneapolis, 1964).

Contents:

Preface to the First Edition

European influence in the Malay Peninsulat, 1511 – 1786 [by D.K. Bassett]
Penang, 1786 – 1830
Singapore, 1819 – 26
The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824
The Civil Service in the Straits Settlements, 1786 – 1867
The Malacca Land Problems
The Naning War
Anglo-Siamese Relations, 1824 – 67
The Malayan Policy of the East India Company, 1786 – 1867
Trade and Agriculture in British Malaya
The Chinese in British Malaya
Piracy and the Straits Settlements
Rajah Brooke of Sarawak and the Suppression of the Piracy in Brunei
The Transfer

Bibliography of writings in English on British-Malaya, 1787 – 1867 [by C.M. Turbull]