English tombs and monuments in Bencoolen
C.J. Brooks published this field survey of English tombs and monuments in Bencoolen (modern Bengkulu, Sumatra) in 1918, prompted by his attempt to locate the burial places of the naturalists Joseph Arnold and William Jack. The article documents the physical remains of the early English settlement (1685–1824) through its funerary architecture, while also recounting the political crisis that led to the assassination of Resident Thomas Parr in 1805.
Summary
Brooks’ primary objective was to identify the graves of two notable naturalists associated with Bencoolen: Joseph Arnold, who discovered the Rafflesia, and William Jack, author of Malayan Miscellanies. Neither could be located, and Brooks speculates they may lie among the many unmarked graves or in a forgotten spot near the old Residency. The survey reveals that of 73 tombs examined, 46 bear no inscription, a fact Brooks finds difficult to explain despite the presence of recesses for tablets in nearly every case (p. 51). Interments were not confined to the formal cemetery; the governing class were buried in scattered locations including Fort Marlborough and the outskirts of town.
The article devotes considerable attention to the monument to Resident Parr, a domed pavilion standing in the town’s main market area, erected by the native population at government order following his assassination in 1805. Brooks summarises the political background from Nahuy’s letters and Lady Raffles’s memoir: the East India Company’s decision to reduce Bencoolen to a dependency of Bengal, the tactless execution of a commission that dismissed the Governor and councillors, and Parr’s subsequent imposition of compulsory coffee cultivation and personal insults upon native chiefs, which culminated in his decapitation at Mt. Felix (pp. 49–51). The government’s retaliatory destruction of villages within a certain radius of the settlement is described in detail, including the felling of sacred fruit-trees.
The remaining sections catalogue individual monuments — the obelisk to Captain Robert Hamilton (d. 1793), three altar tombs in Fort Marlborough, and a numbered cemetery divided into three sections — with transcriptions of inscriptions and brief biographical notes. A plan of the cemetery and three photographic plates accompany the text.
Key Findings
- Of 73 tombs surveyed, 46 bear no inscription; the earliest inscribed grave is dated 1775 (p. 51).
- Resident Thomas Parr was assassinated in 1805 at Mt. Felix, approximately three miles south of Fort Marlborough; his wife and secretary Murray were wounded during the attack (p. 50).
- The total trade of the port of Bencoolen at the time of the 1801 commission was approximately £100,000 per annum (p. 49).
- Captain Robert Hamilton died on 15 December 1793 at the age of 38, in command of the troops and second member of the Government (p. 52).
- Richard Watts, the first President of the coast, arrived in 1699 as Deputy Governor and died on 17 December 1705 in the 44th year of his age; his granite slab now leans against the inner wall of the Parr monument (p. 51).
- The cemetery contains at least 29 identified English or early-origin burials across three divisions, as recorded in the Government register (pp. 52–53, 58).
Conclusion
Brooks presents Bencoolen’s funerary remains as a tangible record of an otherwise obscure chapter in English colonial history, one that has been largely forgotten even by the local population. The article’s implicit argument is that the physical evidence — monuments, inscriptions, and their spatial distribution — preserves a memory that documentary sources alone cannot, and that the settlement’s brief but consequential existence (1685–1824) deserves recognition as an early experiment in English pioneer colonisation in the East.
Context
- Brooks was writing as a contemporary observer with direct access to the site and to local administrative assistance (the Resident of Benkoelen, Mr. van den Horst, and Mr. P. Jansen, T.P.N.), placing the article within the tradition of colonial-era field documentation rather than retrospective historiography (p. 51).
- The political narrative of Parr’s assassination is drawn from secondary sources (Nahuy’s letters, Lady Raffles’s memoir, de Waal’s Onze Indische Financien) rather than from independent archival research, reflecting the limited availability of primary administrative records at the time of writing.