The first State Council in the Protected Malay States
Ernest Chew’s short note corrects a long-standing chronological error in Malayan historiography, demonstrating that the first State Council was established in Selangor (March 1877) rather than in Perak (June 1877) as previously assumed.
Summary
Chew traces the origins of the mixed council system to Sir William Jervois’ 1875 proposal for Perak, which the Earl of Carnarvon accepted after the murder of Resident Birch convinced him that direct rule was inexpedient (p. 182). Carnarvon’s policy despatch circumscribed Residents’ powers while endorsing mixed councils to give principal chiefs a role in administration and to gauge native sentiment on reform (p. 182). Chew then documents the composition of both the Selangor and Perak councils, noting the Colonial Office’s internal debate over the inclusion of Chinese headmen (Chung Ah Kwee and Chin Ah Yam) in the Perak council, which Lord Carnarvon ultimately approved (p. 183).
The note’s central argument is that the delay in establishing the Perak council resulted from the political vacuum created by the removal of leading chiefs after the 1875-6 outbreak, leaving Hugh Low to “create the Government to be advised” (p. 184). Chew attributes the persistent misconception to Frank Swettenham’s British Malaya (1906), explaining that Swettenham was on leave in England from March 1877 to May 1878 and, upon returning, simply assumed that the more capable Low had preceded his Selangor counterpart Bloomfield Douglas (p. 184). The error was subsequently repeated by Winstedt and, by the 1960s, by Kennedy, Ryan, Moorhead, Tregonning, Chai Hon-chan, and Purcell (p. 184).