Colonel William Farquhar, Madras Engineer Corps, 1825 (c)

Black and white lithograph by M Gauci after John Graham, 1825 (c). Published by Graf and Soret, 1825 (c).

'Colonel William Farquhar of the Madras Engineer Corps many years Resident and Commandant of Malacca and subsequently employed in the formation of the New Settlement of Singapore in the East Indies, the Chief local authority (both Civil & Military) of which he exercised for nearly the four first years of its infancy'.

William Farquhar (1774-1839) joined the East India Company at the age of 17 as a cadet, before commissioned as an officer in 1791. He was Chief Engineer in the force that took Malacca in Malaysia, from the Dutch in 1795 and was appointed Resident and Commandant of Malacca in 1813, holding this position until the Dutch returned in 1818. He went on to help Sir Stamford Raffles found the British settlement on Singapore Island, negotiating the Singapore Treaty of 6 February 1819. He was appointed the first British Resident and Commandant of Singapore from 1819 to 1923, when he was removed from the post by Raffles.