Malayan Natural History and the Straits/Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1877–1928

This article examines how the Straits/Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society developed Malayan natural history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Established in Singapore in 1877, following the British intervention policy towards the native Malay states, the Society aimed to promote ‘the investigation of subjects connected with the Straits of Malacca and the neighbouring Countries’. Since July 1878, the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was an important platform for colonial officials and naturalists to share their latest zoological, botanical, and geological findings of the natural world in Malaya. From the 1890s, when botanists and zoologists occupied leading roles in the Society, natural history studies became mainstream. Early research focused on the practical and economic utility of nature, such as identifying profitable resources and dealing with environmental problems. Knowledge production on natural history eventually matured from general and useful information to more specialised and pure science. While practicing scientific imperialism, the Society maintained a close relationship with the Raffles Museum and the Singapore Botanic Gardens. With the launch of the Bulletin of the Raffles Museum in 1928, there was an obvious decrease in the number of papers on natural history in the Society’s Journal, foreseeing its subsequent transformation and shift away from natural history studies.