Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781–1826) was a British colonial administrator, the founder of Singapore. Born at sea off Jamaica and employed as a clerk by the East India Company at fourteen, he rose through the Penang administration, planned the conquest of Java and governed the island as lieutenant-governor from 1811 to 1816, reforming its land revenue and abolishing the slave trade there. His History of Java (1817) made his reputation as a scholar. In 1819 he established a trading post on the island of Singapore, and after his return to England he was the founder and first president of the Zoological Society of London.