Autor/-in: Colonel William Farquhar

Colonel William Farquhar (1774-1839) was a British Colonial Officer who was Commandant of Malacca in 1803, a post through which he was able to indulge his interest in natural history, sending men to collect plant and animal specimens, which he then commissioned artists to paint. After the handover of Malacca to the Dutch in 1818, Farquhar left for Penang, where he met Stamford Raffles, whom he would assist in the founding of modern Singapore as a British trading outpost. Farquhar served as Resident and Commandant of Singapore for four years, during which the colony flourished and prospered. He retired to Scotland in 1824.