Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T21:58:10.072Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kuala Lumpur in the 1880s: The Contribution of Bloomfield Douglas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

James C. Jackson
Get access

Extract

Although, as a result of a boom in tin prices, Kuala Lumpur grew very rapidly in the last two years of the 1870s, and the headquarters of the British administration of Selangor were moved there from Klang in 1880, it still remained a pioneer mining town. A number of contemporary descriptions exist of the town (admittedly seen through European eyes), as it was in the late 1870s and early 1880s. These all portray a small, but bustling, “raw and rumbustious” settlement, with a very large Chinese element in its population; indeed, one visitor in 1879 termed it a “great Chinese village”. This settlement consisted almost wholly of wooden, attap or mud houses, arranged in the haphazard manner which had resulted from its rapid and unplanned growth. One of the major hazards which the town faced at this time was fire, and it was mainly through the fear of extensive fires that the town began to be replanned and rebuilt during the 1880s.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian History , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , September 1963 , pp. 154 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1963

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Bird, Isabella, (Mrs. Bishop), The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither. London, 1883, 219.Google Scholar

2. Gullick, J.M., “Kuala Lumpur, 1880–1895,” Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Vol. 28 pt. 4 1955, 23.Google Scholar

3. Op.cit., 217.

4. Innes, Emily, The Chersonese with the Gilding Off. Vol. 1, London, 1885.Google Scholar

5. Hornaday, W.T., Two Years in the Jungle: The Experiences of a Hunter and Naturalist in India. Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula and Borneo. London, 1885, 330.Google Scholar

6. Middlebrook, S.M., “Yap Ah Loy,” Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Vol. 24, pt. 2, 1951, 94.Google Scholar

7. Speaking of the Selangor State Council Meetings held whilst Douglas was Resident, Dr. Sadka notes that “there was little pretence of discussion; Douglas could not speak Malay, the language of all the State Councils, and had to rely on his Superintendent of Police to intepret for him,” Sadka, E., “The State Councils in Perak and Selangor, 1877–1895,” in Tregonning, K.G., (Ed.), Papers on Malayan History. Singapore, 1962, 110–111.Google Scholar

8. It is interesting to note that Douglas appears to be the only early British administrator in Selangor who does not have a road named after him in Kuala Lumpur.

9. Jackson, R.N., Immigrant Labour and the Development of Malaya. 1786–1920. Kuala Lumpur. 1961, 41.Google Scholar

10. ibid., 79.

11. Gullick, , Kuala Lumpur, 1880–1895, 40Google Scholar.

12. Gullick, J.M., The Story of Early Kuala Lumpur. Singapore, 1956, 65.Google Scholar

13. Gullick, , Kuala Lumpur, 1880–1895, 8Google Scholar.

14. Rathborne, A.B., Camping and Tramping in Malaya: Fifteen Years' Pioneering in the Native States of the Malay. Peninsula, London. 1898. 107–108.Google Scholar

15. Innes, J., Selangor – Past and Present, Selanaor Journal, 3, (1), 09, 1894, 6.Google Scholar

16. The map of Kuala Lumpur about 1875–78 prepared by Dr. Gibson-Hill to illustrate Gullick, Kuala Lumpur, 1880–1895, (page 18), indicates a Malay Burial Ground on the neck of land at the point where the Klang and Gambak rivers meet. It is probable that there was also a fairly large mining pocl located on this piece of land towards the Klang river at the beginning of the 1880s, (see Gullick, J.M., Kuala Lumpur in 1884, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Vol. 32, pt. 1, 1959, 198–202.Google Scholar

17. Quoted by Gullick, , Kuala Lumpur,. 1880–1895, 19.Google Scholar

18. Rathborne, , op. cit., 106.Google Scholar

19. Hornaday, , op. cit., 315–316Google Scholar. Manu of the people who were termed “Malays” by Hornaday may have been recent non-Chinese immigrants, including probably some Muslim Indians.

20. Gullick, , Kuala Lumpur, 1880–1895, 8Google Scholar.

21. Daly, D.D., “Surveys and Explorations in the Native States of the Malayan Peninsula, 1875–82,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. No. VII, 07 1882, 394.Google Scholar

22. Gulliek, , Kuala Lumpur, 1880–1895, 39Google Scholar. The chief property owner in the town, Yap Ah Loy, is reported to have suffered losses estimated at $M100,000 as a result of this fire.

23. All references to the decisions of the State Council are taken from the minutes of the meetings of the Selangor State Council. These minutes are in the National Archives and Public Records Office, Federation of Malaya, Microfilm copies are held by the libraries of the Universities of Malaya and Singapore.

24. Gullick, , Kuala Lumpur, 1880–1895, 39Google Scholar.

25. Gullick, , Kuala Lumpur, 1880–1895., 30Google Scholar.

26. Gullick, , The Story of Early Kuala Lumpur, 72Google Scholar.

27. Middlebrook, , op. cit., 95.Google Scholar

28. Gullick, J.M., A History of Selangor. 1742–1957. Singapore, 1960, 78.Google Scholar