Article

Sir Peter Benson Maxwell

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Sir Peter Benson Maxwell

Early Career and Judicial Appointment

Sir Peter Benson Maxwell was a distinguished Irish lawyer who arrived in the Straits Settlements in 1856 as the first Recorder of Penang under a new Charter of Justice that for the first time provided for two Recorders to serve in the Settlements [1, pp. 137–138]. Before his appointment he had served on a Commission sent to investigate conditions in the Crimea, and had made a name in England as the author of Whom shall we hang?, a work in which he attributed the muddle and inefficiency of the Crimean War to the apathy and indifference of the British public rather than to the Government alone [1, p. 137]. His appointment to Penang was mockingly received in England, where a jingle circulated suggesting it was a reward for bolstering the Palmerston government [1, p. 137]. Maxwell, however, did not regard his new post as a comfortable sinecure; he conceived his mission in Penang almost as a crusade to bestow the blessings of British justice upon what he considered an unenlightened Asian community [1, p. 138].

The Blundell Dispute and Its Aftermath

The defining episode of Maxwell’s early tenure was his bitter conflict with Governor Edmund Blundell over the illegal detention and transfer of a young Malay woman named Meh to the court of the Rajah of Kedah in 1858–1859 [1, pp. 134–135]. The incident originated in a robbery at Telok Ayer Tawar in Province Wellesley on the night of 11 August 1858, in which a gang of more than twenty Malays stole property from a Chinese pawnshop [1, p. 140]. The Deputy Commissioner of Police, Robertson, sent Meh to Kedah as a decoy for her husband, and she was held in confinement for nearly three months [1, pp. 141–143]. When Maxwell learned of the case through a petition from Meh’s mother, he became convinced that the Governor was shielding his son-in-law and that the girl had been deliberately kept out of Penang to suppress evidence [1, pp. 143–147].

The dispute escalated into a constitutional crisis. Maxwell bypassed the Governor and wrote directly to the Governor General, while Blundell accused the Recorder of feigning concern for justice to mask personal vindictiveness [1, pp. 147–148]. The controversy dominated the Straits press, with the Penang Gazette attacking Blundell as an “orientalised despot” and the Straits Times condemning the Gazette’s tone as libellous [1, pp. 149–150]. Blundell submitted his resignation, and Lord Canning accepted it, acquitting the Governor entirely of the corrupt motives charged by Maxwell [1, pp. 151–152].

An official investigation presided over by the new Governor, Colonel Sir Orfeur Cavenagh, confirmed that the police had acted irregularly and illegally in their treatment of Meh, who was undoubtedly a British subject, but found that Robertson’s intentions had been good and that the blame lay largely with the Resident Councillor’s negligent supervision [1, pp. 153–157]. The Advocate General of India, in a detailed opinion of 15 May 1860, found Maxwell’s judgements “unexceptionable” in law but noted that the Recorder had been unduly harsh in construing the motives behind the police actions [1, p. 158]. Lord Canning had recommended Maxwell’s transfer, citing his “coarse imputations, not of acts only but of motives, to the Governor,” but Sir Charles Wood, Secretary of State for India, overruled this and opted instead for a secret reproof [1, pp. 158–159].

Legacy and Documentation

Maxwell retained his office as Recorder of Penang and, despite occasional differences with Cavenagh, maintained a cordial working relationship with the new Governor [1, p. 160]. When the Recorder of Singapore retired in 1866, Maxwell was appointed his successor on Cavenagh’s recommendation, and the following year he became the first Chief Justice of the new Colony [1, p. 160]. Turnbull argues that although Maxwell marred his case by stooping to personal attacks, the basic ideals for which he stood — the complete and impartial enforcement of English law, representative government, and an independent judiciary — were more in keeping with the future requirements of the Settlements than the cautious, tradition-bound approach of Blundell and his colleagues [1, pp. 160–161]. The dispute exposed the structural inadequacy of the Straits Settlements’ governance as a subordinate appendage of the Government of India, and demonstrated that the old system of understaffed, amateur administration could no longer cope with the cosmopolitan societies of the 1850s [1, pp. 160–161].

The principal documentary record of Maxwell’s career in this period is Constance M. Turnbull’s 1957 article in the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, which draws extensively on the Straits Settlements Records in the Raffles Library, Singapore, the printed Proceedings of the Investigation of October 1859, India Office and Colonial Office despatches, and contemporary newspapers including the Straits Times, Singapore Free Press, Penang Gazette, and Penang Argus [1, p. 162].

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. C.M. Turnbull (1957). Governor Blundell and Sir Benson Maxwell: a conflict of personalities JMBRAS 30(1): 134–163. Read on JSTOR