¹ Guillemard to CO. 459 of 29.viii.1919, CO. 273/501.

² Swettenham, F. to CO. Conf. of 27.X.1901; Minutes by Lucas of 8.iii.l901 on Anderson to CO. 49 of 8.ii.l904, CO. 273/307 and CO. to Anderson 171 of 16.vi.1905, CO. 273/311.Google Scholar

³ Figures and tables used in this paper are based on statistics compiled by myself from Malay- an Civil Lists and other sources. They include all members of the M.C.S. from 1905 to 1939, but sources are somewhat defective in the earlier years and they may not represent more than 70–80 per cent of those in the services 1874–1905. There are also one or two gaps in the records 1940–41 caused by the Japanese occupation.

⁴ 1891 and 1911 figures come from the censuses of those years, although they are not entirely above suspicion, especially as regards Pahang in 1891. Earlier figures are gathered from various sources, mainly Gullick, J. M., Indigenous Political Systems of Western Malaya, 1958, pp. 23–4, and are necessarily conjectural. By ‘Malays’ is meant of the Malay (‘Malaysian’) race, i.e. including Aborigines and immigrant Indonesians.Google Scholar

⁵ The Malaya-born proportion of the Chinese population of Perak was 9 per cent in 1911, 20 per cent in 1921 and 31 per cent in 1931. Smith, T. R., ‘Immigration and Settlement in Malaya', Cowan, , ed., The Economic Development of Southeast Asia, 1964, p. 177.Google Scholar

⁶ The Malay proportions are again conjectural; but the pattern is at any rate clear.

⁷ See Emerson, R., Malaysia, 1937, p. 174.Google Scholar

⁸ Clementi Papers, File—Malaya 9: Confidential note on a CO. Conference, 10.iii.1931.

⁹ According to my calculations there were 203 fully fledged European members of the M.C.S. in 1941 of whom 118 remained actively in the service in 1946. (Not all, of course, had died, but some had to be invalided out.) These figures differ somewhat from those furnished by Tilman, R. O., Bureaucratic Transition in Malaya, 1964, p. 109.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Before 1941, it had been theoretically normal, but rare in practice, for anyone below the rank of Chief Secretary or Colonial Secretary to join or leave the M.C.S.

¹¹ Somebody—perhaps the CO.—jibed at the appointment of Swettenham as full Resident in 1874. See Parkinson, C. N., British Intervention in Malaya, 1960, p. 184. But Whitehall's first (and most successful) appointment was that of Low in 1877, and it did not interfere much directly before 1890.Google Scholar

¹² Thomas Weld, father-in-law of the seventh Lord Clifford, became a priest after his wife's death.

¹³ For Low's career, see Hennessy, J. Pope, Verandah, 1963.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Swettenham, F., British Malaya, 1906, p. 225.Google Scholar

¹⁵ For information about Douglas I am indebted to Dr. Sadka, E. who allowed me to see her unpublished Ph.D. thesis, ‘The Residential System in the Protected Malay States’, A.N.U., 1960.Google Scholar For Speedy, see Gullick, J., JMBRAS, XXVI,3 (1953).Google Scholar

¹⁶ British Association of Malaya Papers, Royal Commonwealth Society Library: Memo by R. Clayton, J. B., Item IV. 2.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ See my ‘Two Imperialists’, JMBRAS, XXVII.l (1954).Google Scholar

¹⁹ Swettenham, F., Footprints in Malaya, 1942, pp. 38–9.Google Scholar

²⁰ See Sadka, E., ‘Journal of Sir Hugh Low, Perak 1877’, JMBRAS, XXVII.4 (1954).Google Scholar

²¹ Quoted in Wright, A. and Reid, T., The Malay Peninsula, 1912, p. 314.Google Scholar

²² The East India Company had ruled the Straits Settlements up to 1867.

²³ At least, never quite. See Clifford's letter to Spectator quoted in the Malay Mail, 14.1.1902, about the Chinese.Google Scholar

²⁴ Maxwell, W. E., Selangor Annual Report 1891, p. 27.Google Scholar

²⁵ For a full account of the plans and negotiations preceding the signing of the Federation, I am indebted to Dr. Eunice Thio who allowed me to see her unpublished Ph.D. thesis, ‘British Policy in the Malay Peninsula, 1880–1909’, London, 1956. However, the interpretation here offered is my own.Google Scholar

²⁶ See, e.g. Heussler, R., Yesterday's Rulers, Syracuse, 1963Google Scholar; Furse, Ralph, Aucuparitts, Oxford, 1962Google Scholar; Braibanti, R., ed., The Emergence of Asian Bureaucracies from the British Imperialist Tradition, Duke, 1967.Google Scholar

²⁷ The first ‘Public Schoolboys Only’ dinner was held in the Selangor Club in the 1890s. In 1898, there was a letter to the Times signed ‘Oxonian and Cantab.’ written by two junior M.C.S. officials and complaining, inter alia, about the social background of some of their seniors. See Hon-Chan, Chai, Development of British Malaya 1896–1909, Kuala Lumpur, 1964, pp. 57–8.Google Scholar

The fact that the majority were Public School–Oxbridge did not of course mean that the higher ranks were, and indeed many of those recruited before 1895 were not. Indeed, it makes some sense to talk about a second, minor watershed in the history of the M.C.S. about 1924– 8, when, along with George Maxwell, most of the others recruited before 1895 (and by now very senior) resigned, and the new type of recruits took over the top positions. Of the senior 83 men in the M.C.S. who retired 1906–25 only 31 were definitely Public School, only 26 known to be Oxbridge. In the next fifteen years, of the top 185 who resigned 88 were Public School and 104 Oxbridge.

²⁸ Heussler, , op. cit., p. 13.Google Scholar

²⁹ Braibanti, , op. cit., p. 467.Google Scholar

³⁰ These figures are taken from Civil Lists. The figures in the first and last columns, for which the records are not complete, show a minimum and in brackets my own estimated maximum.

³¹ Anderson to CO. of 4.V.1905, CO. 273/311; Anderson to CO. of 13.ii.1911, CO. 273/ 369.

³² Young to CO. tel. of 5–ii. and 135 of 13.iii.1913, CO. 273/398.

³³ ‘The officers of class vi are… engaged on work that under other administrations would be entrusted to officers of inferior standing probably recruited locally. Here the circumstances are such that men of this stamp are not available….’ Taylor (Resident-General) to Anderson of 25.iv.1905 enclosure in Anderson to CO. of 4.V.1905, CO. 273/311.

³⁴ Stubbs' Minute of 10.ii.1911 (submitting his Report on conditions of service in Malaya) in CO. 273/379.

³⁵ See Minutes on Anderson to CO. of 4.V.1905 (see fn. 33); Brockman to CO. 253 of 9.iv.l911, CO. 273/253.

³⁶ It is difficult to be precise about the proportion of Englishmen who might be described as ‘Public School-Oxbridge class' but it would certainly not be more than 6 or 7 per cent.

³⁷ Taken from the tabel enclosure in C.O. to Anderson 171 of.vi.1905, C.O. 273/311.

³⁸ Apart from Oxford and Cambridge, I think it is a fair assumption that only two other universities were, in this period, ‘socially acceptable’, Trinity College, Dublin (a Protestant foundation) and St. Andrews. Hardly anybody in the M.C.S. came from St. Andrews but there were a number from Dublin, a fact which I shall suggest below was significant.

³⁹ See, for example, The Prefects, Rupert Wilkinson, London, 1964.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ There is no universally accepted definition of ‘Public Schools’, and it is a matter on which Englishmen, in particular, are capable of hours of fruitless argument. I have defined them, for the purposes of those tables, as including all schools which were members of the Headmasters’ Conference or the Association of Governing Bodies of Public Schools except (a) those overseas; (b) a few very large Grammar Schools (Manchester, Bradford, Bristol, Latymer Upper, Newcastle upon Tyne Royal); and (c) a few Scottish academies (Heriot's, Watson's and Gordon's). The rationale for this definition is that membership of these bodies indicated at least a desire to share the Public School ethos, except in those cases where another ethos was long and well established. In any case, the vast majority of those listed in the tables as coming from Public Schools attended those about whose claim to the title there can be no question. In the Education Department, to have taught at a major Public School was important. Dussek, probably British Malaya's greatest educationalist, was refused as head- master of Kuala Kangsar because he had taught only at a ‘secondary’ English Public School, Uttoxeter Grammar School. James to CO. Conf. of 7.X.1919, CO. 273/488.

⁴¹ Quoted in Hon-Chan, Chai, op. cit., p. 57.Google Scholar

⁴² Minutes of Collins (25.viii) and Furse (26.viii) on Young to CO., telegram of 15.vi.1919, CO. 273/487.

⁴³ That is, to take fewer Public School-Oxbridge men. There is some evidence that other factors compensated in some degree for ‘less satisfactory’ educational background. In the M.C.S. many who had the M.C. (an officer's medal) or had carried permanent army rank, or were barristers-at-law seem to have been accepted though slightly faute de mieux.

⁴⁴ Percentages for schools means percentage of those whose school was known—there were between 10 and 25 per cent for whom it was not given in Civil Lists, most of whom we may presume were non-Public School. The university percentage is a percentage of the entire European M.C.S.

⁴⁵ Tilman, , op. cit., p. 47. It is clear, however, that during the late 1920s and the 1930s, as I.C.S. prospects grew dimmer, and for various other reasons, M.C.S. recruits became more ‘gentlemanly’.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ ‘Top’ Public Schools must once again be arbitrarily defined. I have taken Harrow, Eton and Winchester. Some would want additions to this list; few, I think, subtractions.

⁴⁷ Tilman told the author personally that he received an indignant letter from Victor Purcell when he published the fact. And the author, when a slightly garbled account of what he said was published in the press at the time when the paper was first read, was bombarded with angry missives.

⁴⁸ Such a remark is extremely difficult to corroborate, but at least this was the official view: Young to CO. Conf. of ll.viii.1917, CO. 273/484; and in all my researches I have never come across anything to suggest that the boast was unjustified. In the matter of holding tin and rubber interests they were, however, bad, even some of the most senior of them. See my comments below on the ‘alliance’ between the M.C.S. and ‘Big Business’. See also Anderson to CO. Conf. of 19.iv.1910, enclosure and minutes, CO. 273/361.

⁴⁹ When the Reconstruction Scheme ceased and examination once again became the normal method of entry into the M.C.S., Guillemard, who had himself passed second into the Home Civil Service by examination and, not satisfied, sat again and come first, remarked that it was a pity. Nor, as a matter of fact, was he a particularly outstanding High Commissioner.

⁵⁰ See memo by Winstedt in the British Association of Malaya Papers.

⁵¹ e.g. Purcell, , op. cit., pp. 267–8.Google Scholar

⁵² Accounts differ as to which, but all agree that, after his retirement, he never missed a Derby.

⁵³ CO. file for April in CO. 273/506,

⁵⁴ Return to Malaya, London, 1936.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Ibid., pp. 84–5, cf. pp. 108, 111.

⁵⁶ ‘He had been a Resident in one of the F.M.S. for twenty years. He lived in almost regal state. He was very odd and fierce. He had a Malay wife and by her and a lot of other women a great number of children. At last he retired and married a woman in Cheltenham where he had settled down, and his only desire thence forward was hers, to get into the best society.’ Maugham, Somerset, A Writer's Notebook, Heinemann, 1949, p. 202.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ The Maxwell family saw three generations of service in the Peninsula. The Braddells saw two, the third generation Braddell becoming a private lawyer. Birch, E. W., a Colonial Office protegé since his father's assassination, was a special case. I knew of no other father-to-son British Malayan dynasties, although there was another Weld and another Swettenham.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Stubbs' minute of 7.ii on Anderson to CO. 18 of 3.U910, CO. 273/360.

⁵⁹ Swettenham was its first president, Birch, E. W. its third. Both had, at the time of their resignations, caused the CO. some alarm by plunging into business in spheres closely connected with those they had recently been dealing with officially. MacFadyen, who, like Swettenham, was twice president, retired from the M.C.S. to go into business. But the whole question deserves closer attention.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Op. cit., pp. 225–6.Google Scholar

⁶¹ There were a tremendous number of clubs and lodges in the F.M.S. The 1912 S.S. and F.M.S. Directory listed fifteen in Perak, the committees often of which were all British and of which only two were entirely non-British; sixteen in Selangor, only one non-British; and four in Negri Sembilan, of which one was Malay. All the lodges were British-dominated.

⁶² Unless one counts Kedah Peak, dominated by the Sultan‘s bungalow. For an account of Malay participation in social life in the U.M.S. see the account given by Peel, Adviser in Kedah 1922–5, in ‘Colonial Service Notes, 1897–1935’, MSS. Brit. Emp. S. 208, Rhodes House Library, Oxford.

⁶³ Op. cit., pp. 251–2; although it is true that he is referring primarily to Kelantan and Trengganu, not all the U.M.S.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Ibid.

⁶⁵ One quotation will suffice to exemplify the rest. It is from Lockhart, Bruce, op. cit., p. 157: ‘I have an immense affection for Malays. I bristle with resentment when Europeans refer to them as black men. More than any other oriental race, they have qualities akin to our own, and there are few Englishmen or Scots who have lived alone among them and who do not like them. They are proud, courageous and independent. Their sense of humour is keen. By nature they are courteous and cheerful. They have a profound respect for their own “adat” or law of custom, and as companions on a shooting trip they are unflinching in danger. As befits a race that formerly lived by piracy and war, they like most of the white man's games, especially football, and play them well. Ninety-nine per cent of the English in Malaya prefer Chinese to Malays as house servants, and in every respect except one the Chinese are infinitely more efficient. But if you are living alone and you fall ill, your Chinese servants leave you. A Malay will stand by you in good times or in bad…’.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ It is interesting that the only two Governors-High Commissioners of Malaya to know the language and have any working experience of the Chinese, Sir Cecil Clementi Smith and his nephew Sir Cecil Clementi, both had violent disputes with the Malayan Chinese and were widely disliked among them.

⁶⁷ Inaugural speech to the Federated Council, 1927.

⁶⁸ Purcell, , op. cit., p. 96. A. F. Richards (Lord Milverton) confirmed in a personal letter that most M.C.S. officials regarded those who studied Chinese as definitely eccentric.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ This table is based on the Civil Lists which show who had passed a language exam (it was necessary, in most junior parts of the service, to pass one at least before promotion) and which language. Most passed only in one. ‘Chinese’ includes all dialects. ‘Indian’ means, normally, Tamil, occasionally Telugu, and very occasionally Punjabi or something else.

⁷⁰ Anderson to CO. Conf. of 17.viii.1904, CO. 273/300. Cf. Anderson to CO. of 2.ii.I909, CO. 273/346.

⁷¹ Stubbs' Minute of 12.ix.1904 on Anderson to CO. of 17.viii.1904, and of 16.1.1905, on Anderson to CO. 407 of 17.xii.1904, CO. 273/300.

⁷² Stubbs' Minute of 8.viii.l910, also attached to Anderson to CO. of 17.viii.1904, (but written after his visit to Malaya) reads ‘The reasons against employing Eurasians in the P.W.D. (and I am by no means so sure as I was in 1904 that these reasons are bad) …’. The ban on their promotion was now extended to the railways.

⁷³ There is some mystery about how the wording was actually extended to cover Asians as well. The original CO. draft to the Crown Agents changing qualifications read ‘No Eurasian officers not of European parentage …’. This was changed by Lucas to ‘No Eurasian or other officers not of European parentage …’, Ibid. This might have been a slip. McCallum Scott's questions in Parliament of 29.ii.1912, however, showed that the CO. was well aware that the ban was a total one. When members mentioned the agitation in the States against the ban, the Secretary of State coldly replied that he would consider raising it if there were any demand for the concession. A series of other questions asked on 7, 11 and 19.iii; 1, 10 and 24.iv; 6, 9 and 20.v; and 4.vi.l912, embarrassed the CO. considerably but did not weaken its determina- tion to make no change. CO. 273/391.

⁷⁴ For the foundation of the Malay College and of the M.A.S., see Anderson, to CO. 480 of 17.ix.1904, with enclosures and 177 of ll.v.1910, CO. 273/303 and CO. 273/361 respectively.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Stubbs' Minute on Anderson to CO. 105 of 16.iii.1910, CO. 273/360. Cf. Young to CO. 149 of 19.V.1917 in CO. 273/460.

⁷⁶ Young to CO. 108 of 5.iv.l917 reported that the Residents' Conference had laid down that Malays should be promoted to the M.C.S. as supernumeraries only, and that they were not to rank with Cadets for seniority. CO. 273/459. The number of Malays (M.A.S. and M.C.S. combined) in the administration earning more than $200 (approximately £17–£24) per month was as follows: 1895–4; 1905–5; 1915–25; 1925–58; 1935–76. In other words, it did rise appreciably as a result of the introduction of the M.A.S. scheme but never reached even 25 per cent of the European M.C.S. total.

⁷⁷ The Cowgill Report, published in the late 1930s, advocated participation by non–Malay Malayans in certain of the technical departments but not in the M.C.S. itself. It was in any case rejected by the Rulers.

⁷⁸ The ‘liberal planter’ attitude was summed up by Bruce Lockhart who, although he ‘bristled’ when he heard Malays referred to as ‘black men’ and thought they made very loyal servants, was ‘not impressed’ when he met a Malay D.O.: ‘Malaya is still far from ripe for self-government, and in their effort to prepare the Malay for his eventual assumption of this right I only hope that the British authorities are not trying to make him run before he can walk’. Op. cit., p. 163.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Perhaps the peak of M.C.S. hubris was a plan of the 1920s, apparently associated with George Maxwell, whereby the M.C.S. who already filled the post of Director of Education and had taken over all important financial posts, were to take over the top posts in all the technical departments as well. It did not succeed, but the Education Department did not get an educationalist at its head until 1945.