Malacca

Malacca was ceded to the British in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 in exchange for Bencoolen on Sumatra. From 1826 to 1946 Malacca was governed, first by the British East India Company and then as a Crown Colony. It formed part of the Straits Settlements, together with Singapore and Penang (also known as Prince of Wales Island).

History

Malacca and the Spice Islands details military actions between the British and Dutch East India Companies at the end of the eighteenth century.

Battle of Soongei Pattye 1831
Battle of Kalama to Taboo 1832

Records

• BACSA have published the book Malacca: Christian Cemeteries and Memorials by Alan Harfield, 2002 (revised edn). "From the Portuguese time in 1511, through the Dutch occupation 1641-1795 and from 1819-25 to the British period. Includes a short history with lists of churches and MIs; also an account of the local wars with lists of casualties in the Malayan Emergency. 214pp, 70 illustrations, 8 maps and plans"

For details including purchase, see BACSA Books - select Cemetery Record Books.

BACSA have put indexes to the majority of their cemetery books online and these indexes are free to browse. If an indexed name is of interest then application can be made to BACSA for details of the relevant burial inscription - charges apply for this service.

• Ecclesiastical Returns: Baptisms, Marriages and Burials at the British Library. Prince of Wales Island [Penang], Malacca and Singapore 1799-1829 in IOR N/8. These records are included in the digitised records available on the commercial site findmypast

The LDS film number for these records is 498606, item 2.

Returns are continued in the Bengal returns 1830-1868, N/1. For Malacca marriages 1820-1824, see also IOR: R/9/39/3.

• Dutch Records for Malacca in the India Office Records Malaysian Branch of Royal Asiatic Society.

• Malay documents in the Melaka Records in the British Library by Annabel Gallop
• The National Archives of Malaysia (Arkib Negara Malaysia) in Kuala Lumpur holds the following records from Melaka (Malacca)
  • Baptismal registers 1642-1825 of the Dutch Reformed Church. These records are also available on Family Search microfilm, but are only available at the main FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City. (Catalogue entry)
  • Marriage registers 1768-1838 and burial registers 1787-1827 from St Peter’s Roman Catholic Church

External Links

• Malacca Wikipedia
• Straits Settlements Wikipedia
• Official website of the Malaysian Dutch Descendants Project includes History of the Dutch and Dutch-Eurasians in Malaysia

Historical books online

• Also see Malaysia
• Political and Statistical Account of the British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca: Viz. Pinang, Malacca, and Singapore, with a History of the Malayan States on the Peninsula of Malacca‬ by T J Newbold 1839 Google Books Volume I, Volume II
• Statistics of the Colonies of the British Empire from the Official Records of the Colonial Office by Robert Montgomery Martin 1839 Google Books. Book IV- Possessions in Asia "Chapter IV Malacca" pages 405-408
• "The Eastern Settlements: Singapore, Prince of Wales Island, Malacca" page 283 The Bengal and Agra Annual Guide and Gazetteer for 1842 Volume II Google Books. Includes Lists of Inhabitants.
• Malacca and Penang Chapter 6 of Trade and Travel in the Far East; Or, Recollections of Twenty-one Years Passed in Java, Singapore, Australia, and China by G.F. Davidson 1846
• Malacca,page 723 A Gazetteer of Southern India: with the Tenasserim Provinces and Singapore by Pharoah & Co 1855
• Memorandum on the British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca by John Crawfurd 1858 Google Books (Missing pages 1-3) Penang, Malacca and Singapore
• Prisoners their own warders: a record of the convict prison at Singapore in the Straits Settlements, established 1825, discontinued 1873, together with a cursory history of the convict establishments at Bencoolen, Penang and Malacca from the year 1797 by Major J. F. A. McNair, assisted by W. D. Bayliss. 1899 Archive.org
• Slavery and the slave trade in British India: with notices of the existence of these evils in the islands of Ceylon, Malacca, and Penang, drawn from official documents Published 1841 Google Books
• Historical tombstones of Malacca, mostly of Portuguese origin, with the inscriptions in detail and illustrated by numerous photographs by Robert Norman Bland 1905 Archive.org
• The Directory & Chronicle for China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, Straits Settlements, Malay States, Siam, Netherlands India, Borneo, the Philippines, &c. For a range of editions to 1922, see China