Frank Swettenham joined the Malayan Civil Service in 1870, aged twenty, and retired in 1903 as Governor of the Straits Settlements. He remained a significant voice in British colonial policy until his death in 1946, and his biography provides a unique account of colonial Malaya. Henry S. Barlow describes him as an “outstandingly able and effective man, but scarcely a nice one”, noting that Swettenham displayed “ruthless ambition” in his professional and social life and was “cruel, cold-hearted, and deceitful” in his personal life. This comprehensive and exceptionally readable account, a reprint of a limited edition privately published in 1995, presents the man in full.
Selling Points:
• An exceptionally readable biography of a major figure in Malaysian and British colonial history.
• The life of a man whose abilities and ambition carried him to senior positions in colonial Malaya and in the British business world.
Author Information:
Henry S. Barlow (1944 – ) came to in 1970 and worked as financial director of a family-run estates agency. In 1983, following Malaysianization, he spent nearly a decade preparing the Swettenham biography and working on a voluntary basis for local NGOs concerned with the environment and with architectural heritage. He subsequently joined boards of two government-linked estate management companies as an independent non-executive director. He currently runs an arboretum for rare and endangered West Malaysian tree species and pursues a lifelong interest studying the butterflies and moths of the area.
