Who really founded Singapore?

In this essay, I will be writing on Raffles and Farquhar and which of these men should be called the ‘founder’ of Singapore.

Let me start with Raffles and the part he played in the founding of Singapore. Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles was born on the 6th of July, 1781. He died on the 5th of July 44 years later. One of the reasons Raffles should be called the founder of Singapore is that he was the person who decided to search for a British base at the southern part of the Malacca Straits. He was also the person who received Lord Hastings’ authorization and he chose to stay with his choice of Singapore even though Farquhar wanted to go with Kerimuns (the Kerimuns are a group of islands). This means that he ‘founded’ Singapore, because Farquhar only stepped in later to help with the construction of Singapore when Raffles had to leave it.

William Farquhar was born on the 26th of February 1774 and died at the age of 68 on the 13th of May 1839. When Raffles had left Singapore after signing a treaty with Sultan Hussein and Temenggong Abdul-Rahman in which they would receive a fixed annual allowance in exchange for allowing the East India Company to use Singapore as a trading port, he left Farquhar in charge of it. Farquhar had a difficult job because he had to clear some of the jungle which covered almost the entire island; he also had to start building defences for Singapore. He also had to draw people to come and live in Singapore, hire policemen to keep the law as crimes took place very often then and make sure there was a constant supply of food for the people in Singapore. One of his plans was extremely successful. At that time, pests were quite common and Farquhar had to get rid of them. He devised a scheme to pay anyone who killed a rat or a centipede and it worked. However, Farquhar had a hard time communicating with Raffles who was in Bencoolen so he had to lead Singapore for more than three years. When Raffles came back in 1822, he was angry at Farquhar because he had not followed what Raffles had instructed him to do. These include legalising gambling, being ‘okay’ with slavery and building houses where Raffles had instructed him specifically not to. He then dismissed Farquhar.

In conclusion, I feel that Raffles was not right to dismiss Farquhar as the good things Farquhar had done out numbered the bad. Farquhar should be called the founder of Singapore as he had done almost if not all the work to build Singapore up from the fishing settlement that it once was. Raffles just left Singapore after signing the treaty and appointed Farquhar to do all the work. Raffles just left Singapore after signing the treaty and appointed Farquhar to do all the work and did not do any himself. In my opinion, I think the real founder of Singapore is Lieutenant Colonel and later Major-General William Farquhar.

References:
http://rmbr.nus.edu.sg/history/raffles.htm
http://www.postcolonialweb.org/singapore/history/chew/chew3.html
http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_501__2008-12-15.html
http://infopediatalk.nl.sg/biographies/SIP_501__2008-12-15
Singapore: from Settlement to Nation: Pre-1819 to 1971, Singapore: EPB Pan Pacific