1. Major-General William Farquhar was a Madras Army officer and colonial administrator who served as the resident of Malacca from 1803 to 1818 and the resident of Singapore from 1819 to 1823.
25 Facts About William Farquhar
1. 2.
Between 1795 and 1813, William Farquhar was the chief administrator of British-occupied Malacca.
3.
William Farquhar spoke Malay and was popularly known as the 'Rajah of Malacca'.
4.
William Farquhar kept a Malaccan-French mistress, Antoinette "Nonio" Clement, with whom he had at least six children, one of which died while still an infant.
5.
William Farquhar was made a full major in Corps on 26 September 1812, before he was officially appointed Resident and Commandant of Malacca in December 1813.
6.
William Farquhar was made in charge of both civil and military offices until the Dutch returned in September 1818.
7.
William Farquhar negotiated the provisional agreement of 30 January 1819 with the local chieftain Temenggong Abdul Rahman; and the more formal Singapore Treaty of 6 February 1819, which was signed with the Temenggong and the Sultan Hussein Mohammed Shah, confirming the right for the British to set up a trading post.
8.
William Farquhar drew up the first gun and set up the post to hoist the Union Jack flag on top of the hill, marking the birth of Singapore as a British settlement.
9.
William Farquhar then became the first First Resident and Commandant of Singapore to develop the colony according to a provisional plan that he had drawn up.
10.
William Farquhar continued to manage the colony in the four years until Raffles came to review progress.
11.
On 9 May 1821, William Farquhar was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
12.
William Farquhar's justification was that in the rapidly expanding settlement 'nothing is heard in the shape of complaint but the want of more ground to build on'.
13.
On 11 March 1823, as William Farquhar walked into his garden, Sayid Yasin, an Arab, stabbed him with a kris.
14.
William Farquhar remained in Singapore after that for a few months.
15.
At a farewell dinner with the principal merchants and British inhabitants on 27 December 1823, Lt Col William Farquhar was presented with a plate valued at 3000 sicca rupees as a farewell gift.
16.
William Farquhar settled in Perth, Scotland, in late 1826, where he bought two large recently completed Georgian houses and built a billiard hall for the entertainment of his many friends.
17.
William Farquhar married Margaret Loban on 7 April 1828, and had six children with her, including one daughter who died in infancy.
18.
William Farquhar was promoted to the rank of Colonel in 1829.
19.
On 17 August 1833, William Farquhar drafted the Deed of Settlement for his former mistress Antoinette "Nonio" Clement, to whom he bequeathed his house and contents in Kampong Glam, together with an annuity of sp350 paid half yearly in advance.
20.
In 1837, William Farquhar was promoted to the rank of major-general.
21.
William Farquhar died on 11 May 1839 at age 65 in his home, Early Banks, in Perth, Scotland.
22.
William Farquhar has a mausoleum in Greyfriars Burial Ground, Perth.
23.
William Farquhar departed this life at Early Bank, Perth, on the 11th of May 1839, highly respected and deeply regretted by all who had the happiness of his acquaintance.
24.
Between 1819 and 1823 William Farquhar commissioned unidentified Chinese artists to illustrate local flora and fauna.
25.
In 1993, the silver epergne William Farquhar received from the Chinese community before his departure from Singapore on 27 December 1823, was acquired by the National Museum of Singapore from his descendant, Captain David John Farquhar Atkins, for S$52,000.