Navigation – Plan du site

AccueilNuméros110Numéro spécial "Manuscript Librar...Colonial agents and collectorsLibraries within libraries: the J...

Numéro spécial "Manuscript Libraries and Colonialism in Island Southeast Asia"
Colonial agents and collectors

Libraries within libraries: the John Crawfurd collection in the British Library

Bibliothèques au sein de bibliothèques : la collection John Crawfurd de la British Library
Annabel Teh Gallop
p. 177-238

Résumés

En 1842, John Crawfurd (1783-1868) céda au British Museum sa collection de 143 manuscrits javanais, bugis et malais, ainsi que 119 ouvrages imprimés chinois. L’importance de cette acquisition se mesure au fait qu’à cette époque, le British Museum ne possédait que 15 manuscrits en malais et en indonésien. La collection Crawfurd comprend plusieurs sous-collections distinctes, notamment des manuscrits javanais provenant du Kraton de Yogyakarta et des manuscrits bugis du palais de Bone à Sulawesi, deux collections saisies lors des attaques britanniques de 1812 et 1814 respectivement ; des manuscrits javanais copiés pour Crawfurd, témoignant d’une relation étroite avec la cour de Pakualaman à Yogyakarta ; des manuscrits littéraires malais de Penang, Kedah et Java, dont certains issus de cercles de lecture de Semaran ; et une collection d’ouvrages imprimés chinois acquis à Surabaya. Cet article analyse ces « bibliothèques dans la bibliothèque » et retrace également le parcours de quelques manuscrits indonésiens ayant appartenu à Crawfurd, qui semblent avoir été offerts à des érudits allemands et sont aujourd’hui conservés à la Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

Haut de page

Texte intégral

John Crawfurd (1783-1868) and his manuscript collection

  • 1 Langdon 2013: 153 n. 275.
  • 2 A paper by John Crawfurd, ʽOn the Ruins of Boro Budor in Javaʼ, is dated Batavia, March 10th 1817 ( (...)

1John Crawfurd, who was born 13 August 1783 on the island of Islay in Scotland, trained in Edinburgh as a doctor and in 1803 went to India in the medical service of the East India Company. In 1808 he was transferred to Penang, where he began his studies of the Malay language, and by 1810 he was not only assistant surgeon but also acting Malay translator to the government.1 During the British administration of Java from 1811 to 1816 Crawfurd served as Resident in Yogyakarta on four occasions, including when the palace of Sultan Hamengkubuwana II was attacked by British troops in June 1812 and its contents and library sacked. Crawfurd also accompanied expeditions to Bali and Makasar in 1814, serving as Resident in Surabaya and Bangkalan in 1814 and in Semarang twice between 1814 and 1816. Following the Dutch re-occupation of Java in 1816 Crawfurd returned to Britain in 1817,2 and published his major work, the three-volume History of the Indian Archipelago, in Edinburgh in 1820.

2Crawfurd was a skilled linguist with a good command of both Malay and Javanese, and had started learning Old Javanese or Kawi. From his residence in Southeast Asia he amassed a significant collection of manuscripts, and while a few were acquired in Penang, the great majority were obtained from his time in Java from 1811 to early 1817. During this period Crawfurd served under the Lieutenant-Governor, Thomas Stamford Raffles, and alongside the Chief Engineer of the British forces, Colin Mackenzie. All three officials were actively—even frenziedly—engaged in building up collections of manuscripts, commissioning copies of texts, and compiling research materials with the help of both European aides and local scholars, with a view to future publication. Crawfurd had begun planning for his History while still in Java, for it includes drawings of Javanese artefacts and antiquities ‘executed chiefly by a Native of Java,’ and in this and other works Crawfurd also quotes from a number of his Malay and Javanese literary and historical texts, and—via Malay translations—from his Bugis manuscripts.

3During a second posting in Southeast Asia, Crawfurd undertook diplomatic missions to Siam and Cochin-China in 1821 and 1822 and to the court of Ava in Burma in 1826, publishing accounts of both these missions (Crawfurd 1828, 1829), as well as serving in between as the British Resident of Singapore from 1823 to 1826. After returning to Britain around 1828, for the rest of his long life Crawfurd was involved in learned societies, corresponding with scholars, writing and reviewing for journals, and publishing a range of works.

4In 1842 Crawfurd sold his collection of Javanese, Malay and Bugis manuscripts to the British Museum, and his academic interests appeared to shift away from Indonesian languages and literatures and towards broader global issues of free trade, race and evolution (Müller 2013). However he continued to work on his manuscript dictionary of Javanese, and Marrison (1981: 7) has suggested that Crawfurd’s interest in oriental matters was revived by his communication with J.R. Logan of Penang, for whom he contributed several papers to the Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia from 1848 to 1850. The next decade indeed proved particularly fruitful, with the publication of A Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language with a Preliminary Dissertation (1852) and A Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands & Adjacent Countries (1856), which in the preface he presents as a revised and extended version of his History in a more accessible format. John Crawfurd remained active in public and academic circles in Britain right up until his death in London on 11 May 1868 at the age of 84, having lived long enough to be photographed (Fig. 1).

5Little is known of Crawfurd’s private life, and his personal papers have not been preserved in a public institution. While in Penang John Crawfurd married a Miss Nicholson on 17 June 1809. She was present with him in Yogyakarta during his first posting as Resident from 1811 to 1813, but departed for England on 21 October 1813, during which voyage she died at sea with her son. Crawfurd married for the second time in 1820, Horatia Perry (named for her godfather, Admiral Lord Nelson), and they had several children, including a daughter, Flora, and a son, Oswald (Carey 1992: 511).

Fig. 1 – John Crawfurd (1783-1868), by an unknown photographer; albumen print, ca. late 1850s. NPG x139792.

Fig. 1 – John Crawfurd (1783-1868), by an unknown photographer; albumen print, ca. late 1850s. NPG x139792.

© National Portrait Gallery, London. CC BY licence.

  • 3 See Carey 2007: 297–301; Bastin 2019: 336–337 n. 136.

6Crawfurd was not widely liked by his contemporaries.3 The breakdown of relations between Sultan Hamengkubuwana II and the British, leading to the attack on the palace or Kraton in 1812, was probably exacerbated by Crawfurd’s brusque and dictatorial style (Carey 2007: 297–305). Surprisingly, the warmest appraisals of Crawfurd’s character come from Javanese sources in Yogyakarta, where his fluency in the Javanese language and profound interest in Javanese literature, to a degree exceptional amongst European officials, earned him plaudits. The Javanese prince Pangeran Panular wrote of the warm feelings of the royal womenfolk and the new young sultan, Hamengkubuwana III, for Crawfurd, and described him as ‘a man of penetrating intelligence’ (Carey 1992: 199), albeit written in a chronicle that he perhaps knew was destined for Crawfurd’s hands. From a more objective viewpoint, with Crawfurd long departed from Java, Prince Diponegoro compared him favourably with other colonial officials:

He had never known any Dutch [official] endowed with the same love of his fellow man and with the same noble-hearted character as Crawfurd […] Crawfurd spoke about everything with his father or with himself, and he had made the Javanese language his own in under six months because the Malay language is the language of chickens which no ruler in Java wished to hear (Carey 2007: 109).

7The same Dutch observer noted, ‘in everything he said, Dipanagara’s attachment to Crawfurd shines through, and the latter must have been particularly well suited to win the esteem and attachment of the rulers of Java’ (Carey 1980: 14 n. 30).

8In Singapore, however, where Crawfurd succeeded as Resident the very popular William Farquhar, many found him abrasive (Bastin 2019: 336–337 n. 136). In his autobiography published in 1849, Munsyi Abdullah, Raffles’s scribe and Malay teacher to many Europeans in Singapore, and astute chronicler of early Singapore society, paints an essentially uncomplimentary picture of Crawfurd:

I noticed that Colonel Crawfurd was by nature inclined to impatience and outbursts of temper. He did all his work slowly, without hurrying. He was conscientious as well as capable, and he was also a man of education. Yet in spite of this he was fond of material wealth. He was tight-fisted and gave himself airs. His temperament made him intolerant of listening to long-winded complaints. Neither had he the ability to enquire fully into peoples’ affairs. He preferred short, abbreviated statements of fact. Malays and other races which live in the east enjoy long dissertations and repetition. For this reason I heard many Malays and Chinese grumbling because they felt aggrieved in that their course of action had not been arrived at with their own consent but had been dictated to them (Abdullah 1970: 223-224).

9Despite his linguistic skills and wide reading, in his writings on Southeast Asian literatures Crawfurd was unremmitingly curmudgeonly and insultingly dismissive, earning him continued posthumous oprobium, with C.O. Blagden terming him ‘one of the most perversely critical of men, always severe in his judgement of others, and usually wrong in his own conclusions’ (Blagden 1909: 526). Blagden himself ridiculed the rigidity of Crawfurd’s views held throughout his long academic life: ‘In this respect he was like the Bourbons, he learned nothing and forgot nothing’ (Blagden 1910: 164).

10Although Crawfurd’s library is primarily associated with its present home in the British Library, this article will firstly show that the original collection would have been markedly larger, for a considerable number of manuscripts from Crawfurd’s library passed into the hands of German scholars during the 1830s and are now held in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, while other manuscripts have gone to different homes. The next section follows the archival trail relating to the lengthy process of negotiations with the British Museum over the purchase of Crawfurd’s collection of Malay and Indonesian manuscripts between 1840 and 1842. Lastly, a close examination of Crawfurd’s library reveals that it comprises a number of sub-collections of quite disparate origins and natures.

Crawfurd manuscripts on the move: to Germany and elsewhere

11On Crawfurd’s permanent return to London from service in Southeast Asia in 1828, among the correspondents he engaged with were a number of German scholars working on philology and comparative linguistics. In Germany there was great interest in gaining access to the primary sources in Asian languages that British and Dutch colonial officers had managed to acquire during the course of their duties in Asia (cf. Solleveld 2020: 3). Among the most eminent of these German linguists was Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), who was undertaking a wide survey of the Malayo-Polynesian languages centred around Old Javanese, leading to his major posthumous publication Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Jawa (1836-1839).

  • 4 Humboldt wrote to Crawfurd in French, and Crawfurd replied in English. See Humboldt 2017 for the pr (...)
  • 5 Wilhelm von Humboldt to John Crawfurd, early 1831. In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online Edition of the (...)
  • 6 Ibid.
  • 7 John Crawfurd to Wilhelm von Humboldt, 16.05.1831. In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online Edition of the (...)
  • 8 Wilhelm von Humboldt to John Crawfurd, [05.]08.1831. In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online Edition of th (...)
  • 9 John Crawfurd to Wilhelm von Humboldt, 28.08.1831. In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online Edition of the (...)
  • 10 Wilhelm von Humboldt to John Crawfurd, September to December 1831, date unclear. In: Wilhelm von Hu (...)
  • 11 Wilhelm von Humboldt to John Crawfurd, August 1831 to April 1832. In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online (...)

12From the published correspondence of Humboldt4 we know that the two men first met in London in 1828.5 In early 1831 Humboldt wrote to Crawfurd in London to renew their association, and, referring to the quotations from the Old Javanese Bratayuda in Crawfurd’s publications, pleaded for the loan of a copy of the Bratayuda in Kawi script, which could be sent through the hands of Humboldt’s son-in-law, Baron von Bülow, the German Minister in London.6 Crawfurd replied to Humboldt on 16 May 1831, sending a volume containing copies of his papers on Javanese, Malay and other languages, and offering also copies of two dictionaries of Javanese, one with explanations in English and the other in Javanese, but explaining that ‘many of my manuscripts I am sorry to say are at present at a distance and not accessible to me’. He promised that as soon as he could lay his hands on them, he would ‘fulfill my engagement to offer some oriental manuscripts to your Excellency. Among the latter will, I think, be a copy of the Brata Yuda’.7 In his reply of 5 August 1831, Humboldt promises to return the volume of papers as soon as he has worked through it, and warmly accepts the offer of the two dictionaries,8 to which Crawfurd responded on 28 August 1831, stating that he had ‘lost no time in sending to my residence in the country for the two Dictionaries which you wish & have now the pleasure to forward them’.9 Humboldt replied in late 1831 thanking for the loan of the dictionaries, but asking again for a manuscript of the ‘Brata Yudha’.10 Perhaps shortly later, in an undated letter Humboldt wrote again to Crawfurd with profuse thanks for two manuscripts, in Kawi and Bugis. The Kawi manuscript must have been a copy of the Bratayuda, for Humboldt asks Crawfurd for further information on where and from whom he had obtained the manuscript of the Bratayuda, and when and from what original it was copied, noting how helpful it was to have the paraphrased version of each word of the text.11

  • 12 Schlegel is perhaps best known in Germany as a leading Romantic critic and poet who translated Shak (...)
  • 13 Wilhelm von Humboldt to August Wilhelm von Schlegel, October 24, 1832. In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: On (...)

13This is the last known letter between Humboldt and Crawfurd, but from another letter from Humboldt to August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767-1845)12 dated 24 October 1832, it is clear that Crawfurd had also been in correspondence with Schlegel, and had presented him with at least three manuscripts: one in Bugis, and two in Javanese. Schlegel had evidently offered these to Humboldt, who responded that the Bugis manuscript was of no use to him, as he himself already had ‘a very fine one’ from Crawfurd, but added that the Javanese ones might be of interest if they were in Kawi. He mentions that thanks to Crawfurd, he had finally received the text of the Bratayuda, which included a Javanese paraphrase of the individual words and a Javanese translation.13

  • 14 Pers. comm., Thoralf Hanstein, 24 January 2025.

14These snippets of correspondence illustrate how, in the days before photocopies or digital photographs, precious research materials were shared between scholars based in different countries or even continents: careful hand-written copies could be made for presentation or lending, and even original manuscripts were sent by post or through the hands of trusted intermediaries as gifts or on long term loan. What is clear is that Humboldt did return to Crawfurd the two manuscript dictionaries of Javanese, one into English (BL Add MS 18578) and one into Javanese (BL Add MS 12344), and the paper manuscript of the Old Javanese Bratayuda with modern Javanese paraphrases (BL Add MS 12279), as all these manuscripts are now held in the Crawfurd collection in the British Library, two bearing traces of their journey to Berlin. The Javanese dictionary (BL Add MS 12344) is inscribed on the first page: J Crawfurd, Athenaeum Pall Mall, London (Fig. 3). This is the address from which Crawfurd wrote to Humboldt, and as it is Crawfurd’s only manuscript to bear his address, this was probably written just before the manuscript was despatched to Berlin. The Kawi manuscript (BL Add MS 12279) has, tucked into its final pages, a small slip of card bearing a German address (Fig. 2). Although the address cannot be linked to Humboldt,14 the card bears witness to the travels of this manuscript to Berlin and then back to London.

Fig. 2 – Crawfurd’s letter to Humboldt, sent from the Athenaeum Club along with two Javanese dictionaries. John Crawfurd to Wilhelm von Humboldt, 28.08.1831.

Fig. 2 – Crawfurd’s letter to Humboldt, sent from the Athenaeum Club along with two Javanese dictionaries. John Crawfurd to Wilhelm von Humboldt, 28.08.1831.

In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online Edition of the Linguistic Correspondence. Berlin. Version of 15.03.2023. URL: https://wvh-briefe.bbaw.de/​244

Fig. 3 – Javanese dictionary, inscribed on the first page ‘J. Crawfurd, Athenaeum Pall Mall, London’. The label, ‘80. A Dictionary of the Javanese’ links to the numbered list of Javanese manuscripts Crawfurd offered to the British Museum in 1840. The final inscription records the purchase by the Museum of this manuscript from Crawfurd in February 1842.

Fig. 3 – Javanese dictionary, inscribed on the first page ‘J. Crawfurd, Athenaeum Pall Mall, London’. The label, ‘80. A Dictionary of the Javanese’ links to the numbered list of Javanese manuscripts Crawfurd offered to the British Museum in 1840. The final inscription records the purchase by the Museum of this manuscript from Crawfurd in February 1842.

British Library, Add MS 12344, f. 1r

Fig. 4 – A piece of card with a German address, found inside the copy of the Bratayuda lent by Crawfurd to Humboldt, and then returned to London.

Fig. 4 – A piece of card with a German address, found inside the copy of the Bratayuda lent by Crawfurd to Humboldt, and then returned to London.

Crawfurd collection. British Library, Add MS 12279

  • 15 For the full contents of this volume see Matthes 1875: 99–101; see also Pudjiastuti & Hanstein 2016 (...)
  • 16 With thanks to Campbell Macknight for this information (pers. comm. 8.1.2025).
  • 17 Pudjiastuti & Hanstein 2016: 342; NB not in Pigeaud 1975: 172, 225.

15However, certain other manuscripts originally belonging to Crawfurd can now be identified in the possession of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (henceforth SBB), where the collections of both Schlegel and Humboldt are held. The Staatsbibliothek holds three Indonesian manuscripts received in 1846 from the collection of August Schlegel. The most substantial item is a paper codex of texts in Bugis and Makasar which contains, amongst others, the oldest known Bugis chronicle of Bone and a copy of the Makasar chronicle of Gowa (SBB Ms. or. fol. 386)15, and this is almost certainly the source of Crawfurd’s account of the history of the island in his History (Crawfurd 1820: 2.386–390; Macknight, Paeni & Hadrawi 2020: 29–30, 63).16 There is also a paper manuscript in Javanese, Jaya Lengkara (SBB Ms. or. quart. 313) and a Javanese palm leaf manuscript of Serat Yusup (SBB Ms. or. fol. 387).17 As it is known that Crawfurd presented two Javanese manuscripts to Schlegel in addition to the one in Bugis, it is indeed likely that these are the three manuscripts from Crawfurd.

  • 18 Klatt 1890: 180.

16The first two Schlegel manuscripts mentioned above bear his ex libris bookplate, affording firm evidence of their provenance, but the Humboldt manuscripts in the Staatsbibliothek prove harder to identify. Wilhelm von Humboldt bequeathed his entire collection of linguistic materials to the Royal Library in Berlin, but in fact soon after his death in 1835 many of the items were dispersed (Mueller-Vollmer and Messling 2023). Then, according to Staatsbibliothek records, in 1840 Wilhelm’s brother Alexander von Humboldt gave 21 ‘Javanese’ manuscripts to the Royal Library.18 In the catalogue of Javanese and Balinese manuscripts in German collections by Pigeaud (1975), the name Humboldt is not listed in the index, but the introduction to the history of the collections in the Staatsbibliothek notes:

Some years before 1850 the Bibliothek acquired an important collection of 16 Javanese manuscripts characterized by inserted flyleaves bearing scholarly notes on the contents written in old-fashioned German script. The notes are not always relevant. Moreover several manuscripts contain English notes mentioning the name of the Javanese texts, which is an indication that they came to Germany by way of the United Kingdom. They may have been brought to Europe by one of the British officers or civil servants who resided in Java during the British interregnum, 1811-1816, in the period of the Napoleonic occupation of The Netherlands (Pigeaud 1975: 172).

  • 19 Pers. comm., Thoralf Hanstein, 10 April 2019.

17The 16 manuscripts are identified as SBB Ms. or. oct. 173-175; Ms. or. quart. 349-359; and Ms. or. fol. 401-402. From the sequence of shelfmarks it is clear that these Javanese manuscripts were accessioned after 1846 and before 1850. Pigeaud further states: ‘About 1849 two remarkable Yogyakarta Kraton manuscripts, comparable with manuscripts in the British Museum collection in London, were registered as Berlin SB Ms. or. fol. 405-406’ (Pigeaud 1975: 173). In fact, according to the accessions register, the nine manuscripts shelfmarked SBB Ms. or. fol. 401-409, comprising four Javanese, four Malay and one Bugis, appear to have been accessioned together, and therefore to originate from the same source (Fig. 5). It is thus possible that the collection of 16 Javanese manuscripts identified by Pigeaud, together with the two Yogyakarta palace manuscripts, and the four Malay and one Bugis manuscript (admittedly totalling 23), may correspond with the donation of 21 manuscripts from Alexander von Humboldt of 1840, as it was sometimes the case that formal accessioning was delayed due to linguistic difficulties.19

  • 20 ‘I have received at this very moment the works that you have been kind enough to send me’ (Je reçoi (...)
  • 21 Gallop 2013a; Wieringa & Hanstein 2015: 34–37; Pudjiastuti & Hanstein 2016: 351.

18The task, therefore, is to identify which of the Humboldt manuscripts now in the Staatsbibliothek may have originated from Crawfurd, bearing in mind that Humboldt may also have received Javanese manuscripts from other sources, for example from Roorda van Eysinga.20 So far four manuscripts can definitely be linked to Crawfurd. The most personal identifier is found in a Malay manuscript of Hikayat Dewa Mandu, SBB Ms. or. fol. 404, in the margins of which Crawfurd sketched in pencil a ‘stick family’ of father, mother and child, initialled J.C. / H.C. / F.C. and labelled carefully: John Crawfurd Esq. / A. Horatia Crawfurd / Flora Crawfurd, perhaps to amuse his little daughter Flora as he was reading the book (Fig. 6). And towards the end of the story, his relief is palpable in another pencilled comment at the bottom of the page: Finis. (Thank god) (Gallop 2013a; Wieringa & Hanstein 2015: 34–37).21

Fig. 5 – Accessions register for Javanese, Bugis and Malay manuscripts with shelfmarks Ms. or. fol. 401 to 409. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

Fig. 5 – Accessions register for Javanese, Bugis and Malay manuscripts with shelfmarks Ms. or. fol. 401 to 409. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/​werkansicht/​?PPN=PPN1898331014&PHYSID=PHYS_0078

Fig. 6 – Pencilled sketch of a stick family in the margin of the Malay manuscript Hikayat Dewa Mandu, labelled John Crawfurd Esq. / A. Horatia Crawfurd / Flora Crawfurd.

Fig. 6 – Pencilled sketch of a stick family in the margin of the Malay manuscript Hikayat Dewa Mandu, labelled John Crawfurd Esq. / A. Horatia Crawfurd / Flora Crawfurd.

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. fol. 404, p. 77.

  • 22 Matthes 1875: 99; Pudjiastuti & Hanstein 2016: 351.

19The Bugis manuscript with the preceding shelfmark, SBB Ms. or. fol. 403,22 contains an episode from the renowned Bugis literary genre I La Galigo. This is a beautiful manuscript, with polychrome double illuminated frames at the beginning, and an illuminated tailpiece at the end, and is almost certainly the ‘very fine’ Bugis manuscript presented by Crawfurd to Humboldt (Fig. 7). In graphic layout it recalls a collection of Bugis poems from the Crawfurd collection now in the British Library (BL Add MS 12376), which has similar but essentially monochrome double decorated frames (Fig. 8), a strong indication that the two manuscripts share similar provenance histories, originating from the royal library of Bone.

Fig. 7 – Illuminated frames marking the beginning of the text of an episode from the Bugis literary genre, I La Galigo.

Fig. 7 – Illuminated frames marking the beginning of the text of an episode from the Bugis literary genre, I La Galigo.

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. fol. 403, ff, 2v-3r.

Fig. 8 – Decorated frames marking the beginning of the text from a Bugis collection of tolo’ poems.

Fig. 8 – Decorated frames marking the beginning of the text from a Bugis collection of tolo’ poems.

Crawfurd collection. British Library, Add MS 12376, ff. 2v-3r

20Two of the Javanese manuscripts contain notes in English in Crawfurd’s hand: SBB Ms. or. quart. 350, containing the Romance of Sukmadi, with a slip of paper inscribed ‘A Legend from the Arabic’ (Pigeaud 1975: 208), and SBB Ms. or. fol. 401, inscribed ‘A collection containing Hambiya, the story of the Chinese wars and Semoro’ (Pigeaud 1975: 226) (Fig. 9). These are the only English notes recorded by Pigeaud, and as not all the manuscripts have been digitised, it is possible that more traces of Crawfurd’s pen might be found in other Javanese manuscripts in the Staatsbibliothek.

Fig. 9 – A note in Crawfurd’s hand stating ‘A collection containing Hambiya, the story of the Chinese wars and Semoro’ in a compendium of Javanese texts.

Fig. 9 – A note in Crawfurd’s hand stating ‘A collection containing Hambiya, the story of the Chinese wars and Semoro’ in a compendium of Javanese texts.

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. fol. 401.

  • 23 BL Add MS 12282, 12286, 12292, 12322 and 12323 (Ricklefs, Voorhoeve and Gallop 2014: 50).

21Apart from these four, there are a number of other manuscripts which are highly likely to have come from Crawfurd. Most prominent are the two Yogyakarta palace manuscripts mentioned above, SBB Ms. or. fol. 405 and 406, both linked to BL Add MS 12325 (Pigeaud 1975: 228), while at least one other Javanese manuscript, SBB Ms. or. quart. 359, is written in ‘quadratic Kraton script, probably Yogjakarta style’ (Pigeaud 1975: 212–213). In the same shelfmark sequence, the two Malay manuscripts SBB Ms. or. fol. 407, Hikayat Seri Rama (Pudjiastuti & Hanstein 2016: 358), and SBB Ms. or. fol. 408, Undang-undang Kedah (Pudjiastuti & Hanstein 2016: 359), are written in a distinctively Kedah scribal hand (cf. Gallop 2015: 36), and may have derived from Crawfurd’s service in Penang from 1808 to 1811. Two other manuscripts, SBB Ms. or. quart. 353, a Panji tale, dated 1811 (Pudjiastuti & Hanstein 2016: 285–287), and SBB Ms. or. quart. 355, Serat Kanda, dated 1813 (Pudjiastuti & Hanstein 2016: 288–289; Wieringa 2024) both have finely illuminated double frames around the opening pages which are directly comparable to many of the Javanese manuscripts in the Crawfurd collection in the British Library (Figs. 10 and 11), as well as identical black leather bindings to those also found on many of Crawfurd’s Javanese manuscripts in the British Library (Figs. 12 and 13). Indeed, the scribe who copied the Serat Kanda, SBB Ms. or. quart. 355, was Wongsayuda, who copied five of Crawfurd’s manuscripts now in the British Library.23

22There are thus at least seven manuscripts now in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin which can be firmly identified as originating from John Crawfurd, comprising three from the collections of August Schlegel and four from Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, while seven others from the Humboldt collection are very likely also to have come from Crawfurd. In addition to these 14 manuscripts, further research is needed to ascertain whether or not the other 12 manuscripts probably from Humboldt—11 in Javanese and one in Malay—may also be linked to Crawfurd.

(Left) Fig. 10 – Opening page with illuminated frame of Serat Kanda, 1813, copied by Wongsayuda. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. quart. 355, p. 1.
(Right)
Fig. 11 – Opening page with illuminated frame of a Babad, 1813, also copied by Wongsayuda. Crawfurd collection. British Library, Add MS 12292, f. 2v.

(Left) Fig. 10 – Opening page with illuminated frame of Serat Kanda, 1813, copied by Wongsayuda. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. quart. 355, p. 1.(Right) Fig. 11 – Opening page with illuminated frame of a Babad, 1813, also copied by Wongsayuda. Crawfurd collection. British Library, Add MS 12292, f. 2v.

23Germany was not the only destination for Crawfurd’s manuscripts. On his return from Southeast Asia, in 1828 Crawfurd had become a member of the Royal Asiatic Society, which had been formed in London in 1823, and he paid the annual subscription until the early 1830s. There is one Javanese manuscript in the Royal Asiatic Society that may have come from Crawfurd, perhaps some time in the early 1830s: RAS Javanese 48, a palm leaf manuscript, with a paper wrapper with a note in English that it originated ‘from a simple man in the Tengger (Hill)’. This text has been identified by Ricklefs as a copy of Serat Pujanepun tiyang Tengger inkang kina-kina. It is the original source of the paper transcription in the Crawfurd collection in the British Library, Add MS 12324, which Crawfurd himself described as ‘The sacred book of the Javanese of the mountain of Tangar still professing the Hindoo religion’.

(Left) Fig. 12 – Black leather binding of Serat Kanda, 1813. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. quart. 355
(Right) Fig. 13 – Identical black leather binding of a Babad, 1813. Crawfurd collection. British Library, Add MS 12292.

(Left) Fig. 12 – Black leather binding of Serat Kanda, 1813. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. quart. 355(Right) Fig. 13 – Identical black leather binding of a Babad, 1813. Crawfurd collection. British Library, Add MS 12292.
  • 24 RAS Archives; GB 891 RAS COLL5/1/2·Subseries·1827–1950.

24It is possible that more manuscripts originating from the Crawfurd collection might be traced in other repositories at a future date, and there may even be artefacts from Java brought over by Crawfurd yet to be identified. The same year that Crawfurd sold his manuscripts to the British Museum in 1842, he donated to the Museum two coin-shaped charms (BM 1842,0409.7 and 1842,0409.3). No other items deriving from John Crawfurd are yet known of in any British museum, but he did own at least one more item, a metal bowl. The Royal Asiatic Society Archives holds a letter dated 11 April 1827 from Michael Faraday of the Royal Institution to Sir Alexander Johnstone of the Society, concerning the constitution of a bowl from Java which was made from an alloy of copper and tin; with the letter is a sheet of information about the bowl in which it states it was in the possession of John Crawfurd.24

The acquisition of the Crawfurd collection by the British Museum in 1842

  • 25 According to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator, £250 in 1842 would be worth £23,959 in 202 (...)

25In 1842, John Crawfurd sold his collection of Javanese, Bugis and Malay manuscripts, and a number of Chinese printed books, to the British Museum. He received £250 (Harris 1998: 134), with the proportion of £230 expended on the 133 manuscripts representing just under a quarter of the total expenditure of the Manuscripts Department of the BM for acquisitions in the year 1841-1842 (Carey 1980: 13, n. 17).25

  • 26 A note of explanation on British Library shelfmarks: the shelfmark sequence ‘Add MS’ [Additional Ma (...)

26The Crawfurd acquisition was transformational for the British Museum’s collections from maritime Southeast Asia. Its impact can be judged from the fact that at the time of purchase, the British Museum held only 15 manuscripts in Malay and Indonesian languages. Six of these—a Christian Psalter and a work on Islamic law or fiqh in Malay, and another volume on fiqh in Javanese and Arabic, as well as three documents in Javanese and Old Javanese—had been present at the foundation of the Museum in 1753 through the bequest of the collections of Sir Hans Sloane (Gallop 2019). Over the course of the next century, nine further manuscripts had been acquired, including three from other named ‘foundation’ collections of the British Museum: a 17th-century Malay letter from Brunei (BL Harley Ch. 43.A.6), a few palm leaves of a Serat Yusup tale in Javanese (BL Grenville LXI, now missing), and a gold letter from Bali (BL Egerton MS 765). Other acquisitions with Add MS (Additional Manuscript) shelfmarks26—indicating acquisitions additional to the named foundation collections—included two Batak pustaha (BL Add MS 4726, BL Add MS 11546), a Malay letter from Bengkulu in Sumatra (BL Add MS 4828*), a map from Mindanao (BL Add MS 4924) and a copy of an early Malay grammar held in the Bodleian (BL Add MS 7043). As is apparent from the descriptions above, these earliest Indonesian manuscripts to enter the British Museum were a motley crew of disparate documents, with no lengthy tomes. In contrast, the Crawfurd collection consisted mainly of substantial literary, historical and legal texts, with just ‘one’ of the 80 Javanese manuscripts listed comprising around four hundred archival documents from the court of Yogyakarta, now bound in three volumes.

  • 27 Assistant to the Director of the British Museum, 1978-2004, and author of many publications on the (...)
  • 28 Madden was famously acerbic, and did not get on with his colleagues at the British Museum. On his d (...)

27In the introduction to his publication of the archival documents from Yogyakarta mentioned above, Peter Carey (1980: 2, 13; 2023) drew attention to the diaries of Sir Frederic Madden (1801-1873)—Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum from 1837 to 1866—for information about the acquisition of the Crawfurd collection. Through the generous help of Marjorie Caygill27 and her profound knowledge of the archival labyrinth of the institution, further information from the Madden journals and in the British Museum Archives relating to the Crawfurd collection has been unearthed.28 This paper trail has led to an exceptionally significant discovery: the unpublished letter of 1840 in which John Crawfurd first offered his collection of 136 manuscripts to the British Museum, accompanied by his own listing of 80 Javanese and 24 Malay titles. The letter, from which the quotations below are taken, and listings are reproduced in full in Appendix 1. Two other appendices correlate Crawfurd’s own listings of his Javanese (Appendix 2) and Malay (Appendix 3) manuscripts with current British Library shelfmarks and titles.

28On 26 April 1840 Crawfurd wrote to the Trustees of the British Museum to offer for sale his collection of 136 manuscripts (comprising 80 Javanese, 24 Malay, 31 Bugis and Makasar, and 1 Burmese) and 119 Chinese printed books. In relation to his Javanese manuscript collection, Crawfurd avows: ‘I believe there is no work of any esteem in this, the most cultivated of the insular tongues of India, which it does not contain’. Referring to his dictionaries and his manuscripts in Old Javanese, he notes that it was from these ‘that the late Baron W. Humboldt composed his learned work on the Kawi language.’ After mentioning briefly the Malay and Bugis components of his collection, Crawfurd concludes,

As a whole, I believe I am warranted in stating that this collection is the largest and most complete in its own department, which anywhere exists, and that it would be perhaps impracticable at the present day, by any care or pains to obtain such another.

  • 29 According to the online Bank of England Inflation calculator, £516 in 1840 would be equivalent to £ (...)

29Acknowledging that he had heard it was British Museum policy for the vendor rather than purchaser to name the price, Crawfurd proposed a ‘wholesale’ figure of £3 to £4 per volume, suggesting that this was the standard pricing for dealers in European manuscripts, with a further price of 6 shillings 8 pence per volume for the Chinese printed books, coming to a total of £516.29 He stressed that this calculated figure ‘excludes all reference to the rarity of the works, and indeed, to such intrinsic value as they may be supposed to possess.’

30Madden’s diary entry for 30 August 1840 notes that he had been ordered by the Trustees

to report on an offer made by Mr Crawford [sic], author of the Account of the Embassy to Ava, for the purchase of his collection of Javanese, Malay, Bugis & Macassar MSS. in number 136, together with 119 vols. of printed Chinese works, for the sum of £526 [sic]. I think it is too much, as the quarter part of the MSS. are recent transcripts made for Mr C. himself when a resident at Java.

31Crawfurd’s 1840 offer was thus refused by the British Museum, but two years later the parties were in conversation again. On 10 February 1842 Madden wrote in his diary, ‘Mr J. Crawfurd has again made an offer of his Javanese and Malay MSS.’ In the meantime, Crawfurd had evidently attempted to sell his collection to Paris, for on 12 February Madden wrote ‘Had a conference with the Trustees and recommended that no larger a sum than 250£ should be offered to Mr Crawfurd for his MSS. which is nearly the same as the offer made him from Paris.’ On Friday 18 February 1842, ‘Mr Forshall informed me that Mr Crawfurd had accepted the offer of the Trustees (230£) for his collection of manuscripts’ and the next day, 19 February 1842, ‘The MSS of Mr. Crawfurd were brought to the Museum.’

  • 30 British Library. Dept. of MSS. Acquisitions Minutes 1837-1840, f. 186r.

32The background to and outcome of the deal—and the identity of the potential purchaser in Paris—are laid out in the Minutes of Acquisitions of the Department of Manuscripts:30

The purchase of Mr Crawfurd’s MSS was declined in April, 1840.
He made a second offering of this collection to the Museum in Feb. 1842, with the addition of a few more, so as to make the numbers:

Javanese, on European or mulberry paper

81

Ditto, on palm leaves

6

Bugis & Macassar

31

Malay

24

Burmese

1

[143]

  • 31 Édouard Dulaurier (1807-1881) was a French orientalist. In 1838 he visited the Royal Asiatic Societ (...)

Mr C. sent a letter in from Prof. Dulaurier31 of Paris, who had offered him 1.13.0 per volume, declined by him, and requested the Trustees to make their own valuation. The Trustees on this statement, were inclined to offer Mr C. 250£ for his collection (including the 119 Chinese books), which was accepted, and the MSS. sent to the Museum on 19 Feb. 1842. The sum to be paid for the MSS. is £230 15s. 8d.

33Thus the sum offered by Dulaurier, for 143 manuscripts at £1 13s per volume, would have amounted to £235 19s. In the event, Crawfurd accepted the sum of £250 for the full collection, which equated to £230 15s. 8d. for the manuscripts, and £19 4s. 4d. for the 119 volumes of Chinese printed books.

  • 32 On 30 March 1839 Barlow Hoy presented to the British Museum three palm leaf manuscripts in Pali lan (...)
  • 33 BL Egerton MS 765, a gold letter in Balinese from the princes of Badung and Mengwi to the Dutch gov (...)

34The work of checking the purchase started immediately in the week following the receipt of the collection, for on Monday 21 February 1842 Madden recorded, ‘Verified Crawfurd’s MSS. with the list sent in April 1841 [sic]. A few more are now added, to make 81 Javanese, 31 Bugis and 23 Malay.’ On Wednesday 23 February 1842, Madden met Crawfurd: ‘Mr Crawfurd called, and we had much conversation respecting his collection of MSS. I shewed him the Siamese MSS. on reed presented to us by Mr Barlow Hoy, which he was surprised, and said he never had been able to procure any during his residence in that country.32 He tells me that the character written on the gold plate purchased two years ago of Mr Sams, is Javanese, and is probably a letter written by one of the native princes to the British Government.33 I sent for Mr. C’s work on the Indian Archipelago, published in 1820. 3 vols. 8º. which I find interesting.’ The checking of the manuscript volumes against the lists continued, and the following week, on Monday 28 February 1842, Madden noted ‘Received a letter from Mr Crawfurd, relation to the MSS. lately purchased from him. Nos. 5 & 12. of the Malay volumes are lost.’

35In the meantime, Madden continued his reading of the British Museum’s copy of Crawfurd’s History of the Indian Archipelago (1820), where he would have encountered Crawfurd’s highly disparaging opinions on Javanese literature:

If the reader expects to find in the literature of Java any merit worthy the attention of the European scholar, he will be disappointed. He will discover in it neither sublimity, pathos, tenderness, nor humour, but, on the contrary, bombast, puerility, or utter inanity, in literature, the very stammering of infancy without its interest or amusement (Crawfurd 1820: 2.21)

36with more in the same vein:

A subject more inexplicable than the want of skill and refinement in writing and composition, which is referable at once to barbarity, is the wonderful feebleness and imbecility of all they write, the utter absence of that ardour, energy, and sublimity, which has so often characterized the poetry of nations which had made far less progress in the arts which minister to comfort and necessity than the Javanese (Crawfurd 1820: 2.37).

37The rich cycle of tales around Prince Panji, the Javanese culture hero, are dismissed for their ‘unaccountable feebleness and utter want of ingenuity’ (Crawfurd 1820: 2.26–27). Malay literature suffers the same verdict:

Malayan romances, whatever their origin, are singularly destitute of spirit. To point a moral is never attempted; and the gratification of a puerile and credulous fancy seems the sole object. All prose composition is remarkably monotonous (Crawfurd 1820: 2.56).

38While acknowledging that ‘the Bugis have a considerable body of literature’, all of it is ‘characterized by the same feebleness, childishness, and extreme credulity, which I have ascribed to Javanese literature, and probably they are still more tame and infantine’ (Crawfurd 1820: 2.61–62).

39In a diary entry for Sunday 17 April 1842, we find that the fate of the British Library’s collection of Malay and Indonesian manuscripts might have turned out very differently if Madden had happened to read Crawfurd’s work earlier. That day, Madden writes:

Read a part of Crawfurd’s Indian Archipelago. In the 2nd vol. I see he estimates the Javanese & Malay literature at so very low a point, that had I noticed this before, & put it before the Trustees, I do not think they would have given him 250£. for his MSS. nor, in fact, are they worth it.

  • 34 The varying number of manuscripts cited in the different iterations—from Crawfurd’s original listin (...)

40Thankfully for posterity, by this time Crawfurd’s manuscripts had been formally accessioned into the British Museum collections, and 130 volumes were assigned shelfmarks in the series Add MS 12273-12401, with some bound volumes containing more than one item from Crawfurd’s listings. In August 1843 Crawfurd added a further volume of original letters, piagems or land grants, and Javanese poetry (BL Add MS 14397) and then finally in March 1851 sent in the manuscript copies of his notes on Javanese grammar and literature (BL Add MS  18577) and his 15,000 word Javanese-English dictionary (BL Add MS 18578) (Carey 1980: 2). In total, manuscripts currently bound as 133 volumes were received from John Crawfurd, comprising 76 in Javanese, 30 in Bugis and Makasar and 25 in Malay, as well as one manuscript in Burmese, in the form of a chronological table of Ava copied for Crawfurd, and one in Persian, a copy of the Tuti-nameh or Tale of the Parrot.34

Table 1 – Crawfurd manuscripts in the British Library, with current shelfmarks

Javanese

Add MS 12273-12345, 14397, 18577-8

76

Bugis & Makasar

Add MS 12346-Add 12375

30

Malay

Add MS 12376-12399

25

Burmese

Add MS 12400.A-B

1

Persian

Add MS 12401

1

Total

133

Libraries within the Crawfurd library

41Crawfurd’s library sold to the British Museum reveals traces of at least five distinct sub-collections of quite disparate natures. There are two war-booty libraries, of Javanese manuscripts taken from the Kraton of Yogyakarta following the British attack in 1812 and of Bugis manuscripts from the royal library of Bone at Bontoala seized in 1814, but the majority of the Javanese manuscripts are new copies commissioned by Crawfurd. The Malay manuscripts are quite mixed in origin and include a few from private collections in the Malay quarter of Semarang, while the 119 volumes of Chinese printed books, published in China, were purchased in Surabaya.

421. Javanese manuscripts from the royal library of Yogyakarta

43The first constituent library within the Crawfurd collection consists of manuscripts taken from the Kraton of Yogyakarta in the British attack on 20 June 1812 during the reign of Sultan Hamengkubuwana II. This section of his collection of Javanese manuscripts is described by Crawfurd in his letter to the Trustees of the British Museum in 1840: ‘a considerable portion of those fell into my hands on the storming and capture of the palace of the Sultan of Java in 1811 [sic, i.e. 1812].’ According to the search for Yogyakarta Kraton manuscripts in British collections carried out by M.C. Ricklefs at the request of Peter Carey, 27 Javanese manuscripts in the Crawfurd collection now in the British Library were identified as originating from the palace library, including three volumes bound by Crawfurd containing several hundred archival documents (Gallop 2020a: 58–59). This war-booty collection is relatively well known, probably for two main reasons. The first is that the continuing presence of a functioning royal court in Yogyakarta, and its unique political status in Indonesia, have served to keep the memory of the ravages of 1812—remembered as Geger Sepehi, ‘the carnage of the Sepoys’ in reference to the role of Indian troops employed by the British in the brutal assault on the palace—alive in the historical imagination. Secondly, no less important is the role of the historian Peter Carey in researching and publishing widely historical documentation about the event (cf. Carey 1980, 2020; Carey & Hoadley 2000), including editing and translating into English a graphic and poignant Javanese eye-witness account of the attack, the Babab Bedah Ngayogyakarta by Pangeran Arya Panular (BL Add MS 12330), which—ironically—was presented to Crawfurd by the author himself in 1816 (Carey 1992).

442. Javanese manuscripts copied for Crawfurd

45The second and indeed larger proportion of the Javanese manuscripts are copies commissioned by Crawfurd, as he explains: ‘the greater number were copied at my own expense during a six years’ residence in that island, and while I was engaged in the study of the language’. This means that of the 80 Javanese manuscripts listed by Crawfurd, over half would have been newly copied between 1811 and 1816. These manuscripts were therefore only about 15 years old when first offered to the British Museum in 1840, which is the main reason adduced by Madden for refusing Crawfurd’s original asking price of £516.

46Many of these newly copied manuscripts can be identified by their uniform codicological profile, being written on fine English watermarked paper in a quarto format by a small, palaeographically recognizable, number of scribes, some with illuminated frontispieces and identical bindings of black leather (Figs. 12-13). This carefully ‘curated’ library reflects Crawfurd’s warm relations with Javanese literati, notably Kyai Adipati Sura Adimanggala, the regent (bupati) of Semarang, who translated an Arabic work on Islamic law to Javanese for Crawfurd (Serat Kitab Tupah, BL Add MS 12290) and Prince Paku Alam I. The category of new copies also includes manuscripts gifted to Crawfurd evidently at his own request, such as the Old Javanese manuscripts presented to him by the Raja of Buleleng in Bali in 1814, as well as translations from Old Javanese into modern Javanese prepared by the Panembahan of Sumenep, transcriptions of Old Javanese inscriptions, and three volumes of Javanese dictionaries and notes compiled by Crawfurd or under his direction.

  • 35 Setrawijaya was a mantri of the army commander Raden Tumenggung Sumadiningrat (ca. 1760-1812), who (...)

47Within the copies of Javanese texts commissioned by Crawfurd many of the scribes are named, the most prolific of which was Wongsayuda, responsible for five manuscripts now in the British Library as well as one now in Berlin mentioned above. Tiyangsepuh Ngabehi Sestraprawira, who describes himself as a court official (abdi-dalem), copied four manuscripts, followed by Setradirana with three. Setrawijaya, a former court official who travelled widely with Crawfurd,35 and Ranawijaya copied two each, while the names of Setrajaya and Sastrawijaya are found on one manuscript each. In some other manuscripts the scribes are not named.

Table 2 – Named scribes of Javanese manuscripts copied for Crawfurd

Scribe

Manuscript shelfmark

Wongsayuda (6)

Add 12282, Add 12286,
Add 12292, Add 12322,
Add 12323; SBB Ms. or. quart.
355

Tiyangsepuh Ngabehi Sestraprawira (4)

Add 12297, Add 12302,
Add 12317, Add 12332

Setradirana (3)

Add 12280, Add 12287, Add 12290

Setrawijaya (2)

Add 12283, Add 12296

Ranawijaya (2)

Add 12300, Add 12333

Setrajaya (1)

Add 12293

Sastrawijaya (1)

Add 12279

48Of the manuscripts in a standard quarto format, 21 have superbly illuminated double frames, known in Javanese as wadana renggan, around the two opening pages of the text. The colours are strong and bright: red, pink, blue, yellow and green, sometimes applied with typical lapisan-style Javanese shading, always including gold, and with all elements outlined in black ink. These double frames fall into two stylistic categories: seven are typically pan-Islamic illuminated frames across a double-page spread, with decoration focussed on the three outer sides of each page, symmetrical about the central gutter of the book. In Crawfurd’s manuscripts, these seven frames fit the standard Javanese ‘diamond-on-rectangle’ style of wadana renggan, with an essentially rectangular outline onto which is superimposed a cropped double rhomboid or diamond shape (Behrend 2005: 53). The other 14 double frames are quite different in style: these are wadana gapura, ‘gate frontispieces’ or wadana renggan candhi, ‘frontispieces decorated as temples’, a style only found in the Yogyakarta region (ibid.: 49), with the illuminated frames identical on each of the facing pages. The architectural references are clear with recognizable bricks, pillars, pedestal bases, domes and window niches, and in one case even with bird cages hanging from a roof beam (BL Add MS 12301, see Fig. 14).

49The two types of illuminated frontispieces were incorporated into the books in completely different ways. For the rectangular wadana renggan, the text commences on the left hand page in the illuminated frame, and then continues through the rest of the manuscript. However, for all the manuscripts with candi or temple-style wadana, the text commences at the start of an ordinary, undecorated, page, and continues thus through the manuscript. Each book has then subsequently had a bifolium, of different paper, added at the beginning, with the illuminated wadana enclosing the first lines of the text copied in from the text proper, at the end of which is placed a small golden leaf-like marker. The two pages with the wadana are followed by one or two blank pages until reaching the (original) first page of the text, where same golden leaf-like marker marks the end of the portion of text that had been repeated in the illuminated frontispiece. This phenomenon was first noted in three Crawfurd manuscripts and analysed by Dick van der Meij (2022), but a careful study of all Crawfurd’s manuscripts reveals that while all the rectangular wadana renggan appear contemporaneous with the copying of the text, every candi or temple-style wadana is a later addition to what was originally a plain, undecorated, manuscript. Furthermore, all these candi illuminated frames appear to have been created in the same atelier and at the same time, for all are on the same English wove paper watermarked ‘Budgen & Wilmott 1814’, which often post-dates the date of copying of the text itself. Moreover, the texts enclosed by the illuminated frames are all written in the same hand.

Fig. 14 – (Left) Illuminated frame of Babad Pacina in the wadana renggan candhi ‘temple’ style, with a small golden leaf marker at the end of the text. British Library, Add MS 12301, f. 2r.
Fig. 15 – (Right) First page of the text of Babad Pacina, with a golden leaf marker in line four, indicating the end of the portion re-copied within the illuminated frames. British Library, Add MS 12301, f. 3r.

Fig. 14 – (Left) Illuminated frame of Babad Pacina in the wadana renggan candhi ‘temple’ style, with a small golden leaf marker at the end of the text. British Library, Add MS 12301, f. 2r.Fig. 15 – (Right) First page of the text of Babad Pacina, with a golden leaf marker in line four, indicating the end of the portion re-copied within the illuminated frames. British Library, Add MS 12301, f. 3r.

50The clue as to who was responsible for this project to enhance Crawfurd’s manuscripts may be found in the only manuscript with a wadana renggan candhi where the text starts within the illuminated frames and continues on the following pages without repetition: BL Add MS 12337, containing the teachings of Sultan Hamengkubwana I of Yogyakarta, which was presented to Crawfurd by Prince Pakualam I. This manuscript can thus be regarded as evidence that the other manuscripts with similar illuminated frontispieces were also created in the Pakualaman. During his time in Java Crawfurd enjoyed extremely close relations with Pakualam I, who had supported the British in the attack against Sultan Hamengkubuwana II and had been rewarded with his own principality in Yogyakarta, and it can be surmised that it was Pakualam I who organised the ‘beautification’ of Crawfurd’s Javanese books. Ricklefs quotes a Pakualaman manuscript about how Crawfurd had borrowed books to be copied:

Tuwan Mister [Crawfurd] asked to be instructed in adat law, with examples of the Javanese usage. He borrowed various texts from Pakualam: Serat Arjunawiwaha and Rama, Bratayuda and Panji and others; many of these books were illuminated and bound with gold (Ricklefs 1969: 241-242).

51Behrend (2005: 49) had noted that the gapura or candi style of wadana was latterly found in both Kraton and Pakualaman manuscripts, but since none of the Kraton manuscripts captured in 1812 had illuminated frames in this style, it is most likely that this style emerged in the Pakualaman, and that the manuscripts illuminated for Crawfurd now in the British Library may well be the earliest known exemplars of the wadana gapura style of illuminated frontispieces.

Reappraising Crawfurd’s ‘old’ and ‘new’ Javanese manuscripts

  • 36 Correctly identified by Keyzer (1854: 336, 338). It is likely that these two Qur’an manuscripts are (...)
  • 37 With thanks to Peter Carey, Nancy Florida and John Paterson for advice on this question.

52The distinction between manuscripts newly copied for Crawfurd, and older manuscripts taken from the Kraton library is not always clear. As has been previously noted, there may be further Javanese manuscripts in the British Library collections not listed by Ricklefs which in fact were taken from the palace library, while on the other hand, some of the Javanese manuscripts identified by Ricklefs as originating from Kraton clearly post-date the attack of June 1812 as they have dates of copying of 1813 or later (Gallop 2020a: 51–52), including, self-evidently, Pangeran Arya Panular’s text describing the British attack. A complicating factor is that many later copies faithfully reproduce the dated colophons of their older sources, and in these cases the use of dated watermarked English paper is frequently crucial for establishing the actual age of the manuscript. Certain aspects of Crawfurd’s own listing of the Javanese manuscripts are also surprising. His two copies of Qur’an manuscripts from Java are not recognized as such, being described respectively as ‘A religious work in the Pegon character’ (BL Add MS 2312) and ‘A legend in the Pegon’ (BL Add MS 2343).36 Crawfurd made no claims to knowing Arabic, but harder to understand are the titles he assigned to three Javanese tomes: no. 14, Romance of Wangsa Yuda (BL Add MS 12292), no. 15, Romance of Satra Jaya (BL Add MS 12293) and no. 17, Romance of Satra Wijaya (BL Add MS 12296), which are not, as might be expected, named for the main characters of the narratives, but for their scribes. One possible reason is that in 1840, twenty years after the publication of his major work on Java and the Malay archipelago, Crawfurd did not wish to spend time identifying the manuscripts, and so—rather disengenuously—assigned the names of the scribes, to avoid having unidentified texts in the list of titles offered for sale to the British Museum.37

53Subjecting all Crawfurd’s Javanese manuscripts to a full codicological assessment has helped to delineate the different profiles of the two main sub-libraries. Four manuscripts on Ricklefs’ Kraton list can now be identified as copies newly made for Crawfurd (BL Add MS 12281, 12288, 12302 and 12337). Conversely, to the Kraton list can be added four volumes not included by Ricklefs: the two Qur’ans (BL Add MS 12312 and 12343), and copies of Serat Babad Mataram (BL Add MS 12306) and Serat Babad Pakunegaran (BL Add MS 12318), the latter probably being the original from which Crawfurd’s copy, BL Add MS 12283, was made by Setrawijaya. There are also four other old Javanese manuscripts in Crawfurd’s collection. Two of these are palm leaves, including a copy of Serat Rama (BL Add MS 12273) with faded gilt ornamentation on the boards, suggesting a certain age, and a copy of the Raden (Ardi) Kusuma romance (BL Add MS 12275). One manuscript is from Tengger, and appears to contain a copy of the text of a palm leaf manuscript now held in the Royal Asiatic Society (Javanese 48). A fourth manuscript contains a babad which needs further research to ascertain whether or not it originated in the Kraton (BL Add MS 12331). In total, of the 76 volumes of Javanese manuscripts now held in the Crawfurd collection in the British Library, 27 were probably taken from the Yogyakarta palace, four are other old manuscripts, and 45 are manuscripts newly copied for Crawfurd.

  • 38 BL Add MS 12289, 12294 and 12316.

54There are three main categories of bindings on Crawfurd’s Javanese manuscripts. Twenty-six manuscripts—mostly new copies, but including three volumes from the Yogyakarta Kraton38 —have identical black leather bindings with pastedowns of Javanese paper (dluwang) showing that they were bound in Java (see Figs. 12 and 13). These bindings have simple blind-stamped ornamentation on front and back covers, with about five ruled frame bands, enclosing a more decorative frame band of angled s-shaped scrolls (a motif commonly called itik pulang petang, ‘ducks going home in the evening’, found all over the archipelago). At the four corners and mid-points enclosed by these frames are small bunched plumes of five petals similar to fleur-de-lys, with an eight-petalled floral motif in the centre of each cover. Just one example (BL Add MS 12298) has an Islamic-style envelope flap. The manuscripts with these black bindings were probably all bound some time after the copies were made; Ricklefs commented that ‘the first page was partially glued to the inside of the cover during binding, thus often covering the title of the volume, as well as other information such as the date of copying’ (Ricklefs 1969: 243). There may be a Semarang connection with these black ‘Crawfurd’ bindings, as the only other examples known are in the Royal Asiatic Society, on two volumes of the Salasilah Raja-raja di Tanah Jawa (Raffles Malay 24), both with envelope flaps, copied by Lutnan Abas ibn Ahmad of Kampung Melayu, Semarang, who in 1815 was appointed by the British authorities as Malay tutor to the young sultan Hamengkubuwana III in Yogyakarta (Carey 2007: 410).

  • 39 RAS Raffles Java 4 and 7.

55Fourteen of the Yogyakarta Kraton manuscripts have original Javanese full dark brown leather bindings, many still with envelope flaps, with the front and back covers densely blind-stamped with between four and six decorative frame bands, corner pieces and central medallions. These bindings are identical to those found on Yogyakarta Kraton manuscripts in the Mackenzie collection now also in the British Library and in the Raffles collection in the Royal Asiatic Society,39 but this style of binding does not seem to have been unique to the Yogyakarta kraton as other examples from Central and East Java are also known (see Plomp 1993: 574–577). However, ten of the 16 such bindings in Crawfurd’s collection (including two in Malay, both Panji stories, BL Add MS 12383 and 12387) have been enhanced by the addition of small silvery metal clasps to fasten the envelope flaps to the front cover. The fact that such metal clasps have never been seen on any other original Javanese leather bindings, including even other Kraton manuscripts in the Mackenzie and Raffles collections, implies that they were specifically added to Crawfurd’s books while in Java.

56The other bindings are European: 26 manuscripts have full brown leather British Museum bindings with blindstamped frame bands and central medallions in emulation of the Javanese style, and there are also three half leather bindings with marbled paper covers. Crawfurd’s Javanese collection also includes six palm leaf manuscripts.

Fig. 16 – (Left) Javanese brown leather binding with envelope flap and metal clasp, and blind-stamped frame bands, corner pieces and central mediallion. British Library, Add MS 12314.
Fig. 17 – (Right) Brown British Museum leather binding, with stamped ornaments in emulation of the Javanese style. British Library, Add MS 12344.

Fig. 16 – (Left) Javanese brown leather binding with envelope flap and metal clasp, and blind-stamped frame bands, corner pieces and central mediallion. British Library, Add MS 12314.Fig. 17 – (Right) Brown British Museum leather binding, with stamped ornaments in emulation of the Javanese style. British Library, Add MS 12344.

573. Bugis manuscripts from the royal library of Bone

58Crawfurd described the south Sulawesi manuscripts in his collection as follows in his letter of 1840:

In the Bugis and Macassar languages, the two great languages of the island of Celebes, and the most cultivated tongues of the Archipelago next to the Javanese and Malayan, there are 31 vols. These were obtained by me in 1814, at the capture of the palace of the Rajah of Boni, the most powerful chieftain of the island of Celebes. As I am not acquainted with either of these languages, I can only state respecting the volumes in them that their subjects generally are similar to those of the Javanese and Malay M.S.S., and that three of them contain the personal diaries of the Rajah of Boni.

59This second royal library in the Crawfurd collection was captured in 1814 not from the capital of Bone at Watampone, on the east coast of south Sulawesi, but from the sultan of Bone’s palace at Bontoala near Makassar on the west coast (Gallop 2020b). At the time the ruler of Bone was Sultan Muhammad Ismail Muhtajuddin (r. 1812-1823), son of the redoubtable Sultan Ahmad al-Salih Syamsuddin (r. 1775-1812). Following disagreements between the Sultan and the British Resident of Makassar, an expedition was despatched from Java under the command of General Sir Miles Nightingall. On 8 June 1814, troops led by Lt. Col. McLeod attacked and overran the palace at Bontoala, with a considerable loss of life on the Bugis side. Five cannons and other goods were captured before the palace was set on fire by the British (Thorn 1815: 341).

60An account by Captain David Macdonald ([1840?]: 222) confirms that present on the Makassar expedition in 1814 was Crawfurd, then Resident of Semarang, who was thus able to pick through the sultan’s library. It is unlikely that Crawfurd’s collection represents the full contents of the royal library of Bone, because when Crawfurd and Mackenzie each selected manuscripts seized from the Yogyakarta Kraton, Crawfurd clearly focussed on the historical and literary texts, and showed little interest in the many Islamic works that ended up in Mackenzie’s hands. At present, there are 30 (not 31) manuscripts from the royal library of Bone held in the Crawfurd collection in the British Library. These are complemented by two volumes in the Malay manuscript collection containing translations into Malay of excerpts from the Bugis manuscripts (BL Add MS 12389 and BL Add MS 12396), which Crawfurd commissioned in order to make use of in his writings.

61It should be noted that the British Library also holds four further Bugis manuscripts which appear to originate from the same court library. These include two royal Bone diaries from the India Office Library (BL MSS Bugis 1 and 2) which bear Raffles’s bookplate, and were presumably presented to him after the military expedition. Another Bone court diary (BL Or. 8154) was given to the British Museum in 1916 by a Miss E.G. Wren, and it is now shelved alongside a companion volume (BL Or. 8154*) containing letters and fragments of documents which had been found within the diary. It is highly likely that certain Bugis manuscripts held elsewhere share the same history, including a Bugis diary from Bone presented to the Royal Asiatic Society by Samuel Lee, Professor of Arabic at Cambridge, in 1826 (RAS Bugis 1) and two Bugis manuscripts now at SOAS from the collection of William Marsden, including a court diary from Bone (SOAS MS 11398) and a volume received from a Captain Owen RN (SOAS MS 12159). To this number should be added the Bugis manuscripts from Bone now in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin presented by Crawfurd to Schlegel (SBB Ms. or. fol. 386) and to Humboldt (SBB Ms. or. fol. 403). In view of this pattern of dispersal, the question also arises as to whether one of the finest royal Bone manuscripts known —the great Qur’an copied for Sultan Ahmad al-Salih Syamsuddin in 1804, which appeared for sale in Christie’s auction house in London in 2004, and is now in the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, AKM 00488 (Gallop 2010)—might have been taken in that same British military expedition of 1814.

624. Malay manuscripts

63In his letter of 1840, Crawfurd described his Malay manuscripts: ‘In the Malayan, the language with which I am best acquainted, there are 24 volumes, embracing some of the works the most esteemed amongst the Malay people.’ Indeed, the collection is rich in literary works, including 16 volumes of hikayat and four of syair. When Crawfurd’s collection finally entered the British Museum in 1842, two of the Malay manuscripts on the list accompanying his letter of 1840 were found to be missing, as noted by Madden on 28 February 1842. No. 12, Hikayat (Dewa) Indera Layangan, was eventually located by Crawfurd and brought to the British Museum on 9 August 1842, where it was given the supplementary shelfmark Add MS 12385* so that it could follow in sequence after no. 11, Hikayat Putra Gangga, Add MS 12385. But no. 5, Hikayat Dewa Mandu, had evidently been sent over to Germany and is now in the Staatsbibliothek (Ms. or. fol. 404), and so Crawfurd compensated by providing the volume of diplomatic correspondence from Singapore, the ‘Farquhar Letterbook’ (BL Add MS 12398), which he must have taken for his own use while serving as Farquhar’s successor as Resident of Singapore. No. 16 on the list, ‘Translations from the Bugis’, in fact comprises two separate volumes. There are thus 25 Malay manuscripts now in the Crawfurd collection, 10 of which are old copies, and 15 were newly copied for him or another European patron.

  • 40 Marisson (1981: 9–10) gives a full listing of Crawfurd’s Malay manuscripts by likely place of acqui (...)

64Crawfurd’s Malay manuscripts are an eclectic collection, and it is not always easy to identify the regional origin of any particular manuscript.40 It is however clear that he had begun collecting manuscripts from his very first posting in Penang, as it was undoubtedly there that he obtained his copy of the Hikayat Hang Tuah (BL Add MS 12384). The manuscripts of Taj al-Salatin (BL Add MS 12378) and Undang-undang Melaka (BL Add MS 12395) appear to have been copied by the same scribe, with a recognizable ‘Kedah’ hand, and are probably from Penang. Sometimes there are internal clues: thus the unusual spelling of the name of the scribe as Da’ut (d-a-w-’-t) in Crawfurd’s copy of Syair Makrifat (BL Add MS 12390) dated 1807 links this manuscript with one belonging to John Leyden, the Panji tale Hikayat Cekel Waneng Pati copied by the same scribe in 1787 (BL MSS Malay C.1), confirming that Crawfurd must have acquired his manuscript in Penang.

65The majority of Crawfurd’s Malay manuscripts were collected in Java, including presumably four copies of Panji tales, one syair and three in prose hikayat form. Also acquired in Java is a rare copy of Hikayat Banjar, which had in fact been sent to Java by the Sultan of Pontianak intended as a gift for Raffles, but which remained in Crawfurd’s possession (BL Add MS 12392).

66The most interesting subset of Crawfurd’s Malay manuscripts from Java is a small group of four manuscripts from Semarang on the north coast: Hikayat Dewa Mandu (BL Add MS 12376), Hikayat Dewa Indera Layangan (BL Add MS 12385*), Hikayat Syahi Mardan (BL Add MS 12388) and Hikayat Raja Babi (BL Add MS 12393). These manuscripts are not clean copies commissioned by Crawfurd, but were obviously acquired from private owners, most likely during Crawfurd’s two periods as Resident in Semarang, 23 January 1814-12 April 1814 and 18 September 1815-20 January 1816 (Carey 2022: fn. 12). These volumes are all rich in notes, doodles, drawings and comments by the scribes, owners and readers of the texts, and it is these paratexts which give us a glimpse into the Malay literary scene in Semarang, centred on the Malay urban villages of Kampung Melayu, Kampung Tawang and Kampung Pakujan, where books were passed down through families over several generations (Gallop 2013b). It also raises the intriguing possibility of whether one of the most important Malay manuscripts in the British Library—a copy of the Hikayat Raja Pasai (BL Or. 14350), copied in Semarang in 1796, but only acquired in 1987 from the London book dealer David Loman—might originally have come to Britain as part of the Crawfurd collection in the early 19th century.

67Thus nearly all Crawfurd’s manuscripts, in all languages, were acquired during his first period of service in Southeast Asia, when he avidly collected materials to support his planned History of the Indian Archipelago which appeared in 1820. Just three Malay manuscripts can be attributed to his second period of service, in Singapore: the Farquhar Letterbook mentioned above, a copy of Risalat Hukum Kanun, dated 1820 in Singapore (BL Add MS 12397), and the unique copy of the Syair Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin (BL Add MS 12394), which bears the inscription bahwa inilah surat Jon Krafut Residen di Singapura adanya sanat 1825, ‘this is the book of John Crawfurd, Resident of Singapore, the year 1825’. This is Crawfurd’s only Malay manuscript to bear a Malay inscription with his name, suggesting possibly that it was a gift to him.

68It is of course likely that Crawfurd’s Malay collection was originally larger than that held in the British Library today, not least including the four manuscripts now in Berlin noted above. It is furthermore surprising not to find a copy of the most feted Malay work of the period, the Sulalat al-Salatin or Sejarah Melayu, in Crawfurd’s collection, considering that Raffles owned six copies now in the Royal Asiatic Society. Cyril Skinner (1976: 204, n. 31) has suggested the copy in the possession of James Low in 1849 which he had purchased from a shop-keeper some twenty years earlier, which had marginal notes by an ‘English orientalist’, probably belonged previously to Crawfurd.

695. Chinese printed books from Surabaya

70In addition to his manuscripts John Crawfurd also offered to the British Museum 119 volumes of Chinese printed books acquired in Java:

These were collected by me during twelve years’ residence among the Malay countries some five and twenty years back. Being unacquainted with the Chinese language, I can render no account of the printed books beyond what I was told by the parties from whom I purchased them in Java, —and which amounted to no more than this—that 118 of the vols consisted of a statistical account of China, and that the remaining volume was a book of travels in the Malay countries. An extract from this last, furnished by me to the late Mr Marsden will, if I remember aright, be found in his translation of Marco Polo.

  • 41 Han Chan Piet (1759-1827), Chinese Majoor of Surabaya, from a prominent Chinese family (with thanks (...)

71The last book mentioned, the Chinese book concerning ‘Malay countries’, was in fact first referred to by Raffles in his History of Java (1817: 2.127–129), who credits Crawfurd, while he was Resident of Surabaya (in 1815), for acquiring it from ‘Han-Cham-pit41 a Chinese, whose family have for many generations been settled on Java’, and providing the translation. The Chinese book was ‘called Bun-kyan-tong-ko, printed at Pekin one hundred and five years ago, in the reign of the Emperor Bang-he, and compiled under the direction of his ministers Tyn-eng, Ong-un-Chin, Ong-Tam, Tya-yong-twan, and others,’ and Raffles gives a detailed two-page summary of the section pertaining to Majapahit. In his translation of Marco Polo, Marsden (1818: 593) cites Raffles’s description and excerpt which describes the wars between the western and eastern courts of Majapahit in 1404.

  • 42 BLCA/S06/11 [DH52/11]: British Museum, Department of Printed Books: Register of Accessions, 5 Jul 1 (...)
  • 43 The number of constituent volumes can be reconstructed from the Register entry as follows: Reg. nos (...)
  • 44 Pers. Comm., Wallace Kwong, Reference specialist, Rare Books Reading Room, British Library, 17 Apr. (...)

72According to the Register of Accessions of the Department of Printed Books of the British Museum, the Chinese printed books purchased from Crawfurd were registered on 6 August 1842.42 Two titles are listed, the first a multi-part item under the register numbers 6 to 86, with the title ‘Tung keen kang muh. Compendium of the Universal Mirror,’ consisting of 59 Parts in 112 volumes, all in octavo (8vo) format.43 This item has been identified by Wallace Kwong44 as 通鑑綱目 Tong Jian Gang Mu, ‘Outline and Details of the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Government’, a very influential work on Chinese history, compiled in 1172 by students of Zhu Xi (Douglas 1877: 46). The Crawfurd copy, with the shelfmark 15290.a., is a copy of the 1806 edition.

73The second item is a single volume recorded under register number 87 as ‘Leik tae Te wang ke yaau. Chronological abridgement of the History of China up to the expulsion of the Ming Dynasty. Published 2nd year of Kung lung’. This has been identified by Kwong as 歷代帝王紀要 Li Dai Di Wang Ji Yao, ‘A Chronological List of Emperors and Kings of China, down to the end of the Ming Dynasty’, published in the 2nd year in the reign of Emperor Qianlong, i.e. 1737 (Douglas 1877: 231), held at shelfmark 15296.a.10. This volume contains a note written in John Crawfurdʼs hand: ‘A chronological table of the Emperors of China, composed in the 2nd year of the reign of the present emperor father Kun Long, 77 years ago.’

  • 45 The BL reference copy of the catalogue entry for this item is annotated in pencil ‘15022.a. & b.1’ (...)
  • 46 BLCA/S07/01 [DH53/1]: British Museum, Department of Printed Books: Register of Donations, 8 Jan. 18 (...)

74Strangely, neither of these two titles can be linked with the citations by Raffles or Marsden mentioned above, because neither work mentions Java. Based on the detailed description in Raffles’s History of Java giving the name of the four ministers responsible, Kwong identified the work as 淵鑑類函 Yuan Jian Lei Han, a voluminous encyclopaedia comprising 450 keuen or chapters in 139 books, compiled in 1710 at the command of the Emperor Kangxi by the four ministers Zhang Ying, Wang Shizhen, Wang Shan and Zhang Rongduan. The historical account of Java appears in Keuen 234, and is quoted as a supplement () from 續文獻通考 Xu Wen Xian Tong Kao. According to Kwong, this text and the English translation supplied by Crawfurd to Raffles match almost word for word, describing the country’s geographical position, her relationship with China, the war between the Eastern and the Western courts, down to the funeral customs, parrots and monkeys in the last section. The British Library’s complete copy of Yuan Jian Lei Han, shelfmarked 15022.a.1, has a pencilled donation date of 25 May 1846, and so does not appear to derive from Crawfurd.45 However, a careful search through the Register of Donations for the Department of Printed Books of the British Museum found an entry of 9 September 1843, which reads: ‘[Description of Java & adjacent countries]. Chinese. 8o. Presented by J. Craufurd Esq. [sic]’.46 It is not clear from this brief note whether the donation from Crawfurd—which arrived a year after the main sale of manuscripts and books had been concluded—consisted of a copy of the single volume containing Keuen 234, or a more substantial portion of this work; in any event, this item has not yet been located.

Figs. 18 and 19 – 通鑑綱目 (Tong Jian Gang Mu), published in 1806.

Figs. 18 and 19 – 通鑑綱目 (Tong Jian Gang Mu), published in 1806.

British Library, 15290.a.1, showing the spine of the first volume, and the first page.

Fig. 20 – 歷代帝王紀要 (Li Dai Di Wang Ji Yao), a chronological list of the emperors of China to the end of the Ming dynasty, published in 1737.

Fig. 20 – 歷代帝王紀要 (Li Dai Di Wang Ji Yao), a chronological list of the emperors of China to the end of the Ming dynasty, published in 1737.

British Library, 15296.a.10.

Fig. 21 – Crawfurd’s note within 歷代帝王紀要 (Li Dai Di Wang Ji Yao), ‘A chronological list of the emperors of China’.

Fig. 21 – Crawfurd’s note within 歷代帝王紀要 (Li Dai Di Wang Ji Yao), ‘A chronological list of the emperors of China’.

British Library, 15296.a.10.

Crawfurd’s library reconsidered

75In 1842 John Crawfurd sold to the British Museum his collection of 133 volumes of manuscripts primarily in Malay and Indonesian languages, as well as 119 volumes of Chinese printed books acquired in Java. Crawfurd had assembled his library mainly during his first tour of service of Southeast Asia commencing in 1808 when he arrived in Penang, but most actively while in Java from 1811 until 1817. His manuscripts were intended as source materials for his major work, the History of the Indian Archipelago, published in Edinburgh in 1820 in three volumes. During Crawfurd’s second tour of duty in Southeast Asia, from 1821 to 1827, he seems to have had little interest in collecting manuscripts. From this period, he is only known to have acquired three volumes in Malay from Singapore and a Burmese manuscript to support the publication of the journal of his embassy to the court of Ava (Crawfurd 1829).

76This survey of the peregrinations of the Crawfurd library has brought to the fore a number of contradictions. The most striking is that on the one hand Crawfurd’s linguistic prowess in Javanese and his deep interest in Javanese literature is undoubted, as reflected in his impressive library of Javanese manuscripts, and it was doubtless this zeal for Javanese culture that endeared him to erudite Javanese princes and officials. On the other hand it is difficult to reconcile the heartfelt tributes to Crawfurd’s character and learning by the Javanese savants quoted at the start of this article with Crawfurd’s humiliatingly critical, belittling and dismissive opinions on Javanese literature in his publications.

77Another contrary aspect of Crawfurd’s Javanese library is its outstanding aesthetic profile. Many other early British scholar-officials such as Raffles, Leyden and Mackenzie also commissioned copious copies of manuscripts in Malay and Javanese, but these are in general plain productions of unembellished text upon paper. Crawfurd’s newly-copied Javanese manuscripts, in contrast, stand out for their artistry, for nearly half are adorned with superbly illuminated frontispieces, constituting some of the finest examples known of early Javanese book decoration. Crawfurd himself appears to have been utterly impervious to any Indonesian artistic achievement, writing in his History:

Of sculpture and painting the Indian islanders are at present absolutely ignorant […] Of their capacity to excel in painting we have no opportunity of judging, for it is an art, which, in no age, in common with other Asiatic people, they appear to have practised (Crawfurd 1820: 1.328).

  • 47 The plates by Adi Warna in Crawfurd’s History (1820) are as follows: vol. 1, Pl. 6, facing p. 163, (...)

78The History includes beautiful drawings of statues and bas-reliefs from Borobudur and Prambanan by a Javanese artist named in some of the plates as Adi Warna,47 who can be identified as the assistant to Pangeran Kusumayuda, the court artist and uncle of Sultan Hamengkubuwana III of Yogyakarta (Carey 1992: 137), but of his skill Crawfurd only grudgingly comments: ‘The sketches of Antiquities were executed chiefly by a Native of Java, and they have at least the merit of being drawn with minute fidelity’ (Crawfurd 1820: 1.vi). Indeed, we owe the identity of the artist only to the publishing convention of the time of naming the artist and engraver individually on each plate, for Crawfurd gives Adi Warna’s name nowhere in the book itself.

  • 48 See Gallop, forthcoming.

79One possible interpretation of this contradiction in terms is that it must have been the Javanese men of letters around Crawfurd with whom he discussed Javanese literature and upon whom he depended to source rare copies of texts—notably Prince Pakualam I—who took the initiative to ensure that Crawfurd’s books were choice representatives of Javanese book art. It is true that Crawfurd represented the occupying colonial power in Java, and thus would have been viewed as an important source of patronage and protection, and yet his superior Raffles—the ultimate political authority on Java at that time, who was also collecting research materials on Java—did not receive bibliographic gifts of the same calibre. Perhaps this can be seen as a tacit acknowledgement of Raffles’s limited facility in the Javanese language, and the fact that while in Java he focussed on building up a library of texts in Malay,48 ‘the language of chickens’, suggesting that it was Crawfurd’s affinity for Javanese letters, unique amongst colonial officials of that time, that inspired these exceptional gifts.

80A third surprising outcome is that despite the care with which Crawfurd built up his library, after the publication of his magnum opus in 1820 and his final return to Britain in 1828, he seems to have lost interest in these books. He was happy to loan and even give away manuscripts to other scholars, including the German linguists Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt and August Schlegel, and at least 14 of his manuscripts in Javanese, Malay and Bugis, and possibly another 12, are now held in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. The scale of his gifts, both quantatively and qualitatively—including rare illuminated Malay, Bugis and Javanese manuscripts—suggests that despite Munsyi Abdullah’s characterisation of him as ‘tight-fisted’, at this time Crawfurd was not particularly concerned with maximising the financial return on his library. From this viewpoint, the stand-off with the British Museum in 1840 based on the price of his collection is all the more puzzling, until a compromise was reached two years later.

81Crawfurd, like his fellow East India Company scholar-officials, was primarily a philologist, whose main concern was to collect examples of the texts known in various indigenous languages of maritime Southeast Asia, with no interest in the material features of the writing traditions of the Malay world. Crawfurd was also typical of his cohort of early orientalists in paying little heed to the age or origin of the manuscripts in his collection, and there is no evidence either in the composition of his collection or in his writings of a greater appreciation of an older manuscript of a text rather than a newly-commissioned copy. Yet in offering his manuscripts for sale to the British Museum, colonial philology came up against the antiquarianism of the home front, and it was the relative youth of Crawfurd’s manuscript copies that was set against the value of their contents, and found wanting. Ironically, if Madden had first set eyes upon any of the extraordinarily fine examples of Javanese book art contained within the collection—upon which Crawfurd himself set no store, and therefore never thought to mention—his initial verdict might have been rather different.

Acknowledgements

82An early version of this article was presented as ‘The formation of the Indonesian manuscript collections in the British Library: the Crawfurd collection’ at ICAS in Leiden in 2019 on the panel ‘Unpacking Leiden’s Asian Library: Collecting histories and collecting networks from Asia to Europe’, convened by Marieke Bloembergen. The present article was first presented at the ‘Colonialism and manuscript libraries in island Southeast Asia’ workshop at SOAS University of London, in May 2023, organised as part of the Leverhulme Trust-funded Research Leadership Award Mapping Sumatraʼs Manuscript Cultures. My great thanks are due to Marjorie Caygill for information compiled from the Madden diaries and the British Museum Archives; my colleagues Katie Espley, Victoria Ogunsanya, Michael St. John-McAllister, Jana Igunma and Emma Harrison for help with British Library acquisitions records, and especially to Wallace Kwong for identifying in the British Library collections the Chinese books purchased from Crawfurd; Thoralf Hanstein of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin for delving into the provenance histories of Indonesian manuscripts in the collection; and to Peter Carey, John Paterson and many others acknowledged in the notes for further information and comments.

Appendix I: John Crawfurd’s letter to the British Museum, 1840, and listings of his Javanese and Malay manuscripts

83British Museum Archives, Original Papers, C 9/5/40
C 9/5/40

8428/4/40
To the Trustees of the British Museum
77 Chester Square, April 26th 1840

85My Lords and Gentlemen
I beg to tender to the Museum for purchase, 136 Oriental M.S.S., with 119 printed Chinese volumes making in all 255 vols. These were collected by me during twelve years’ residence among the Malay countries some five and twenty years back. Being unacquainted with the Chinese language, I can render no account of the printed books beyond what I was told by the parties from whom I purchased them in Java, —and which amounted to no more than this—that 118 of the vols consisted of a statistical account of China, and that the remaining volume was a book of travels in the Malay countries. An extract from this last, furnished by me to the late Mr Marsden will, if I remember aright, be found in his translation of Marco Polo. The most valuable and complete part of the collection consists of 80 M.S.S. in the Javanese language; a considerable portion of those fell into my hands on the storming and capture of the palace of the Sultan of Java <in 1811>, but the greater number were copied at my own expense during a six years’ residence in that island, and // while I was engaged in the study of the language. I believe there is no work of any esteem in this, the most cultivated of the insular tongues of India, which it does not contain. I may here remark that under the term Javanese are comprised two languages, —the ancient or obsolete language called the
Kawi and the modern or spoken language called the Jawi. The greater number of the vols. are in the latter tongue, but there are several also in the ancient language, and it was from these and a Dictionary compiled by learned natives under my direction, and which is one of the vols. of the collection, that the late Baron W. Humboldt composed his learned work on the Kawi language.

86In the Malayan, the language with which I am best acquainted, there are 24 volumes, embracing some of the works the most esteemed amongst the Malay people. In the Bugis and Macassar languages, the two great languages of the island of Celebes, and the most cultivated tongues of the Archipelago next to the Javanese and Malayan, there are 31 vols. These were obtained by me in 1814, at the capture of the palace of the Rajah of Boni, the most powerful chieftain of the island of Celebes. As I am not acquainted with either of these languages, I can only state respecting the volumes in them that their subjects generally are similar to those of the Javanese and Malay M.S.S., and that three of them contain the personal diaries of the Rajah of Boni. —As a whole, I believe I am warranted in stating that this collection is the largest and most complete in // its own department, which anywhere exists, and that it would be perhaps impracticable at the present day, by any care or pains to obtain such another. There are besides, two volumes which I should have added to the collection, —a dictionary, Javanese and English —and another, English and Javanese with a grammar—compiled by myself, and which I only retain for a time as necessary to the correction of the Malayan Dictionary of the late Mr Marsden, which he was pleased to commit to my care. When this is effected, the M.S.S. in question, being the only existing dictionaries of the Javanese language will be duly deposited in the library of the Museum.

87I should have been happy to have left the price of the collection to the Trustees, but understanding that it is contrary to their custom in such cases to affix one, I beg to name the sum of £516. This estimate, as respects the manuscripts, is founded on the prices of ordinary European M.S.S. being usually averaged by the booksellers who deal in them at from 3 l. to 4 l. sterling per vol.; —while the printed works I have estimated at a Chinese tael or 6s 8d each, which I suppose may have been their prime cost in China. This calculation, of course, excludes all reference to the rarity of the works, and indeed to such intrinsic value as they may be supposed to possess.

88 I have the honor to be

89 My Lords and Gentlemen,

90 JCrawfurd

91C 9/5/40

92Catalogue of Books, and M.S.S

93Javanese

941. Adventures of Mangkunagara – a modern Javanese narrative
2. Brata Yuda – or the Javanese Mahabarat in the Kawi language
3. Romance of Jaya Nagara
4. Chronicle of the reigning dynasty of Java
5. History of the Prince Mangkunagara written by himself
6. Romance of Rama Kaling – or the Ramayana from the Telinga
7. Romance of Hangling Darma
8. Adventures of Jaya Kusuma to the island of Bali
9. History of the kingdom of Mataram in Java
10. History of the kingdom of Solo in Java
11. Romance of Sakondar (Iskandar)
12. History of Pakoe Kusuma – a Javanese Prince
13. Romance of Manglihawan
14. Romance of Wangsa Yuda
15. Romance of Sutra Jaya
16. Romance of Gonda Kusuma
17. Romance of Sutra Wijaya
18. Romance of Gonda Kusuma (another copy on Javanese paper)
19. Romance of Gada Kusuma
20. History of the dynasty of Pajang (Java)
21. Manak Jawi hambar – a legend from the Arabic
22. History of the kingdom of Bantam
23. History of the war of the Chinese in Java against the Dutch and Javanese
24. Anjuna Wijaya – a Romance of Hindoo origin
25. A journal kept by the late Sultan of Java (1812)
26. Punikapa Rimbon – a Javanese Romance
27. Lasmas Salatan – a religious work from the Arabic – the language Javanese and the character an adapted Arabic usually called the Pegon. //
28. Indra Layangan – a Javanese Romance
29. Charita Dadine Bumi Salingit – a legend from the Arabic in the Pegon
30. Hambiya – a legend from the Arabic
31. A religious work from the Arabic in the Pegon or mixed character
32. A Pawukon – or work on Judicial Astrology
33. Primbon Palintang – a Javanese Romance
34. A religious work in the Pegon character
35. A short historical memoir on the modern history of Java
36. A religious work in the Pegon character
37. A religious work in the Pegon character
38. Durya Talajang Sajarah – a Romance
39. The War or Rebellion of Pati in Java
40. History of the Rebellion & war of Mangkunagara – written by himself
41. One of the Romances called Panji by the Javanese
42. A history of Java from the beginnning
43. Cuntara Manawa Sastra
44. A Sangkala or Treatise on Chronology
45. Suryo Alam & Cuntara Manawa – Treatises on the ancient laws of the Javanese
46. Another Sangkala – or treatise on chronology
47. Extracts from the Ramayana in Ancient Javanese or Kawi
48. The sacred book of the Javanese of the mountain of Tang[ger] still professing the Hindoo religion
49. A collection of Javanese songs
50. The Brata Yuda – or Mahabarat in modern Jav /
51. The Wiwaha, – a legend of Anjun in modern Javanese
52. Translation of the Ramayana in the language of Bali
53. Extracts from the Ramayana in Javanese
54. The Ramayana in modern Javanese
55. Extracts from the Kawi
56. Copy of an inscription on stone in the Kawi or ancient language andcharacter of Java
57. Translation in Javanese of an inscription in Kawi
58. Another translation of an inscription in Kawi
59. A history of Java
60. Legend of Sultan Surya Alum
61. A chronology of Java
62. Ganding Buksan – a Javanese tale
63. History of the Sultan Mangkubumi of Java
64. Jaya Langkara – a Javanese romance
65. History of the kingdom of Demak in Java
66. Another copy of Cuntara Manawa Sastra
67. Javanese airs musically noted
68. A Suluk – or treatise on medicine
69. Cuntara Manawa Sastra rendered into Javanese by the Prince of Sumanap
70. A Pawukon, or treatise on Judicial Astrology
71. Rama Kawi – or the Ramayana in the Kawi
72. A collection of Javanese songs
73. Panji Kuda Narawangsa – a Romance
74. A Pawukon or Treatise on Judicial Astrology with many coloured drawings
75. Jaya Lankara – a Javanese Romance
76. A Javanese chronology
77. The Fac-Simile of an ancient manuscript in the Kawi character and language, existing in Chirebon in the island of Java
78. A collection of original letters, grants of land, &c.
79. A legend in the Pegon
80. A Dictionary of the Javanese language explained in Javanese compiled by learned natives at my expense and under my directions //

951. 28/4/40

96Catalogue continued

97Malay books

981. Romance of Dewa Mandu
2. Story of Mahomet Hanafia
3. A book of Moral Maxims
4. Romance of Bahari Kala
5. Romance of Dewa Mandu – another copy
6. Kra Mas or the Golden Ape – a metrical Romance
7. Dang Sarrat – a metrical Romance
8. Ular Mangaong – a Romance
9. Charita Panji – a Romance from the Javanese
10. The adventures of Hang Tuah – a work of much celebrity among the Malays
11. Romance of Putra Ganga
12. Romance of Sultan Mangindra Ohuaoha [i.e. Chuacha]
13. Journal kept by a Malay, who accompanied an English gentleman from Penang (Prince of Wales’s island) to Bengal
14. Romance of Jayang Kusuma from the Javanese
15. A legend from the Arabic
16. Translations from the Bugis into the Malay made for me in 1814
17. Murifat – a Malay Sayar or metrical Romance
18. Dalang Wesa Purba – a Romance translated from the Javanese
19. Romance of Lembu Mangkorat
20. Romance of Raja Babi
21. The metrical Romance of Sultan Mulana
22. The Undang-undang, or customary laws of Malacca
23. A work on Ethics
24. The Adat or Institutes of Sultan Malacca //

99Burmese

100A chronological Table of the principal events of Burmese history, being that from which was compiled the statement given on this subject in J.C.’s account of the Embassy to Ava. The translation which accompanies is by Mr Judson.

101Bugis & Macassar

102P.b.? 31 //

103Summary

Javanese

80

Malay

24

Bugis & Macassar

31

Chinese

119

Burmese

1

Total

255

Appendix 2: Crawfurd’s Javanese manuscripts

104The table below is arranged by number and short title from Crawfurd’s list of 80 Javanese manuscripts appended to his letter of 1840, followed by the current British Library shelfmark, and the short title given in the catalogue by Ricklefs & Voorhoeve (1977). Old Javanese works are indicated with OJ, and palm leaf manuscripts are indicated with PL. In the final column, Y indicates a manuscript taken from the Kraton of Yogyakarta in the British attack of 1812; C indicates a new copy made for Crawfurd during his residence in Java; O indicates an old manuscript. Some of the individual items on Crawfurd’s list are now bound together in a single volume. Of the 76 Javanese manuscripts currently held in the Crawfurd collection in the British Library, there are 27 from the Kraton of Yogyakarta, 45 new copies made for Crawfurd, and four other old manuscripts.

No.

Short title from Crawfurd’s
1840 list

BL shelfmark

Current title (RV 1977)

Copy

1.

Adventures of Mangkunagara

Add 12280

Serat Babad Mangkunagaran

C

2.

Brata Yuda

Add 12279

Bharatayuddha

C

3.

Romance of Jaya Nagara

Add 12281

Serat Panji Angronagung Pakualaman

C

4.

Chronicle of the reigning dynasty of Java

Add 12282

Serat Babad Pakubuwanan

C

5.

History of the Prince Mangkunagara

Add 12283

Serat Babad Pakunegaran

C

6.

Romance of Rama Kaling

Add 12284

Serat Rama Keling

C

7.

Romance of Hangling Darma

Add 12285

Serat Angling Darma

C

8.

Adventures of Jaya Kusuma

Add 12286

Serat Jaya Kusuma

C

9.

History of the kingdom of Mataram

Add 12287

Babad Sejarah Mataram

C

10.

History of the kingdom of Solo in Java

Add 12288

Babad Sultanan utawi Mangkunegaran

C

11.

Romance of Sakondar (Iskandar)

Add 12289

Serat Sakondar

Y

12.

History of Paloe? Kusuma

Add 12290

Serat Kitab Tupah

C

13.

Romance of Manglihawan

Add 12291

Serat Maliawan

C

14.

Romance of Wangsa Yuda

Add 12292

Babad (copied by Wongsayuda)

C

15.

Romance of Sutra Jaya

Add 12293

Serat Babad Mangkuratan (copied by Setrajaya)

C

16.

Romance of Gonda Kusuma

Add 12295

Serat Gonda Kusuma

C

17.

Romance of Sutra Wijaya

Add 12296

Menak (copied by Setrawijaya)

C

18.

Romance of Gonda Kusuma (another copy on Javanese paper)

Add 12294

Serat Gonda Kusuma

Y

19.

Romance of Gada Kusuma

Add 12297

Serat Gada (Gonda) Kusuma

C

20.

History of the dynasty of Pajang

Add 12298

Babad Pajang

C

21.

Manak Jawi nambar

Add 12299

Menak

C

22.

History of the kingdom of Bantam

Add 12304

Babad, called Serat Banten

Y

23.

History of the war of the Chinese

Add 12301

Babad Pacina

C

24.

Anjuna Wijaya

Add 12302

Serat Rejunawijaya

C

25.

A journal kept by the late Sultan of Java (1812)

Add 12303

The Archive of Yogyakarta

Y

26.

Punikapa Rimbon

Add 12300

Legendary tales

C

27.

Lasmas Salatan

Add 12305

Serat Nawawi

Y

28.

Indra Layangan

Add 12306

Serat Babad Mataram

Y

29.

Charita Dadine Bumi Salingit

Add 12307

Carita dadine Bumi Salangit

Y

30.

Hambiya

Add 12309

Menak

Y

31.

A religious work from the Arabic in the Pegon or mixed character

Add 12308?

Babad? [not in Pegon]

Y

32.

A Pawukon – or work on Judicial Astrology

Add 12310

Gonda Kusuma (Jaya Lengkara Wulang)

Y

33.

Rimbon Palintang

Add 12311

Punika serat Primbon Palintangan Palindon Pakedutan

Y

34.

A religious work in the Pegon character

Add 12312

Qur’an

Y

35.

A short historical memoir on the modern history of Java

Add 12313

Serat Sejarah Demak

Y

36.

A religious work in the Pegon character

Add 12314

Fiqh

Y

37.

A religious work in the Pegon character

Add 12315

Primbon

Y

38.

Durya Talajang Sajarah

Add 12316

Legendary Javanese history

Y

39.

The War or Rebellion of Pati in Java

Add 12317

Serat Babad Pati

C

40.

History of the Rebellion & war of Mangkunagara – written by himself

Add 12318

Serat Babad Pakunegaran

Y

41.

One of the Romances called Panji by the Javanese

Add 12319

Panji story

Y

42.

A history of Java from the beginnning

Add 12320

Babad

Y

43.

Cuntara Manawa Sastra

Add 12321

Undang Wangsul Kutara Manawa Sastra

C

44.

A Sangkala or Treatise on Chronology

Add 12322

Serat Babad Sengkala

C

45.

Suryo Alam & Cuntara Manawa

Add 12323.A

Kagungan-dalem Serat Surya Ngalam kalih Salokatara

C

46.

Another Sangkala

Add 12323.B

Sengkala list

C

47.

Extracts from the Ramayana in Ancient Javanese or Kawi

Add 12276

Ramayana Kakawin, OJ, PL

C

48.

The sacred book of the Javanese of the mountain of Tangar still professing the Hindoo religion

Add 12324

Serat pepujanepun tiyang Tengger inkang kina-kina

O

49.

A collection of Javanese songs

Add 12325.B1

Beksa jemparing

Y

50.

The Brata Yuda

Add 12326

Serat Bratayuda

C

51.

The Wiwaha

Add 12327

Serat Rama Wijaya

C

52.

Translation of the Ramayana in the language of Bali

Add 12275?

Raden (Ardi) Kusuma romance, PL

O

53.

Extracts from the Ramayana in Javanese

Add 12273?

Serat Rama, PL

O

54.

The Ramayana in modern Javanese

Add 12273?

Serat Rama, PL

O

55.

Extracts from the Kawi

Add 12274

Arjunawiwaha Kakawin, OJ, PL

C

56.

Copy of an inscription on stone in the Kawi or ancient language and character of Java

Add 12340.C?

‘Fac-simile, in pencil, of an ancient manuscript in the Kawi character’

C

57.

Translation in Javanese of an inscription in Kawi

Add 12323.C

Translation of an inscription

C

58.

Another translation of an inscription in Kawi

Add 12323.D

Translation of an inscription

C

59.

A history of Java

Add 12328

Serat ing Narendra

C

60.

Legend of Sultan Surya Alum

Add 12329

Surya Ngalam

Y

61.

A chronology of Java

Add 12330

Babad bedah ing Ngayogyakarta

C

62.

Ganding Buksan

Add 12325.B2

Beksa jebeng

Y

63.

History of the Sultan Mangkubumi

Add 12331

Babad

O

64.

Jaya Langkara

Add 12332

Jaya Lengkara

C

65.

History of the kingdom of Damak

Add 12333

Serat Sejarah Demak

C

66.

Another copy of Cuntara Manawa Sastra

Add 12277

Kutara Manawa, OJ, PL

C

67.

Javanese airs musically noted

Add 12334

‘Javanese Airs’ on Western musical staff

C

68.

A Suluk

Add 12335

Serat Suluk

Y

69.

Cuntara Manawa Sastra rendered into Javanese by the Prince of Sumanap

Add 12336

Kutara Manawa, OJ

C

70.

A Pawukon, or treatise on Judicial Astrology

Add 12340.B

‘Fac-simile […] treatise on astrology’

Y

71.

Rama Kawi – or the Ramayana in the Kawi

Add 12278

Ramayana, OJ, PL

C

72.

A collection of Javanese songs

Add 12337

‘Collection of Songs, from the Prince Pakualam’

Y

73.

Panji Kuda Narawangsa

Add 12345

Serat Panji Murdaningkung

C

74.

A Pawukon or Treatise on judicial astrology with many coloured drawings

Add 12338

Pawukon

Y

75.

Jaya Lankara

Add 12339

Serat Jaya Lengkara

C

76.

A Javanese chronology

Add 12308

Babad

Y

77.

The Fac-Simile of an ancient manuscript in the Kawi character and language, existing in Chirebon in the island of Java

Add 12340.A

‘Fac-simile […] of an ancient manuscript in the Kawi character’

C

78.

A collection of original letters, grants of land, &c.

Add 12341, Add 12342,

Add 14397

The Archive of Yogyakarta

Y

79.

A legend in the Pegon

Add 12343

Qur’an

Y

80.

A Dictionary of the Javanese langauge explained in Javanese

Add 12344

‘Dictionary’

C

Appendix 3: Crawfurd’s Malay manuscripts

105The table below is arranged by number and short title from Crawfurd’s list of 24 Malay manuscripts appended to his letter of 1840, followed by the current British Library shelfmark, the short title given in the catalogue by Ricklefs & Voorhoeve (1977), and an indication of whether the manuscript is old (O) or a new copy (C), and where it might have been written (Jav=Java; Pe=Penang; Sem=Semarang; Sin=Singapore). In 1842 two items were said to be lost: no. 5 and no. 12. No. 12 was subsequently found, and was allocated a shelfmark within the original sequence by adding an asterisk, hence Add 12385*. No. 5 is now in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, and the Farquhar Letterbook (Add 12298) was added in replacement. In total, 25 volumes were acquired, as no. 16 in Crawfurd’s list comprises two separately-numbered volumes. There are 10 old manuscripts and 15 new copies.

No.

Short title from Crawfurd’s

1840 list

BL shelfmark

Current title (RV 1977)

Copy

1.

Romance of Dewa Mandu

Add 12376

Hikayat Dewa Mandu

O Jav

2.

Story of Mahomet Hanifia

Add 12377

Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah

O Jav

3.

A book of Moral Maxims

Add 12378

Taj al-Salatin

C Pe

4.

Romance of Bahari Kala

Add 12379

Hikayat Isma Yatim

C ?

5.

Romance of Dewa Mandu – another copy

SBB Ms. or. fol. 404

Hikayat Dewa Mandu

C Jav

6.

Kra Mas or the Golden Ape – a metrical Romance

Add 12380

Syair Mesa Gumitar

O Jav

7.

Dang Sarrat – a metrical Romance

Add 12381

Syair Dang Sarat

O Pe

8.

Ular Mangaong – a Romance

Add 12382

Hikayat Ulang Nangkawang

O Jav

9.

Charita Panji – a Romance from the Javanese

Add 12383

Hikayat Carang Kulina

O Jav

10.

The adventures of Hang Tuah – a work of much celebrity among the Malays

Add 12384

Hikayat Hang Tuah

C Pe

11.

Romance of Putra Ganga

Add 12385

Hikayat Putra Gangga

C Pe

12.

Romance of Sultan Mangindra Okuadha

Add 12385*

Hikayat (Dewa) Indera Layangan

O Sem

13.

Journal kept by a Malay, who accompanied an English gentleman from Penang (Prince of Wales’s island) to Bengal

Add 12386

Hikayat Perintah Negeri Benggala

C Pe

No.

Short title from Crawfurd’s

1840 list

BL shelfmark

Current title (RV 1977)

Copy

14.

Romance of Jayang Kusuma from the Javanese

Add 12387

Hikayat Mesa Taman Sira Panji Jayeng Kusuma

O Jav

15.

A legend from the Arabic

Add 12388

Hikayat Syahi Mardan

O Sem

16.

Translations from the Bugis into the Malay made for me in 1814

Add 12396

Add 12389

Translations from Bugis and Makasar texts

C Jav

C Jav

17.

Murifat – a Malay Sayar or metrical Romance

Add 12390

Syair Marifat

C Pe

18.

Dalang Wesa Purba – a Romance translated from the Javanese

Add 12391

Hikayat Naya Kusuma

O ?

19.

Romance of Lembu Mangkorat

Add 12392

Hikayat Banjar

C Pon

20.

Romance of Raja Babi

Add 12393

Hikayat Raja Babi

O Jav

21.

The metrical Romance of Sultan Mulana

Add 12394

Syair Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin

C Sin

22.

The Undang-undang, or customary laws of Malacca

Add 12395

Undang-undang Melaka

C Pe

23.

A work on Ethics

Add 12399

Various hikayat

O ?

24.

The Adat or Institutes of Sultan Malacca

Add 12397

Risalat Hukum Kanun

C Pe

Add 12398

Farquhar letterbook

C Sin

Fig. 22 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, p. 1.

Fig. 22 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, p. 1.

British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.

Fig. 23 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, p. 2.

Fig. 23 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, p. 2.

British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.

Fig. 24 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, p. 3.

Fig. 24 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, p. 3.

British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.

Fig. 25 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Javanese MSS, p. 4.

Fig. 25 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Javanese MSS, p. 4.

British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.

Fig. 26 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Javanese MSS, p. 5.

Fig. 26 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Javanese MSS, p. 5.

British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.

Fig. 27 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Javanese MSS, p. 6.

Fig. 27 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Javanese MSS, p. 6.

British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.

Fig. 28 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Javanese MSS, p. 7.

Fig. 28 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Javanese MSS, p. 7.

British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.

Fig. 29 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Malay MSS, p. 8.

Fig. 29 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Malay MSS, p. 8.

British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.

Fig. 30 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Description of Burmese and Bugis MSS, p. 9.

Fig. 30 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Description of Burmese and Bugis MSS, p. 9.

British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.

Fig. 31 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, last page with Summary of the number of volumes offered, p. 10.

Fig. 31 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, last page with Summary of the number of volumes offered, p. 10.

British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.

Haut de page

Bibliographie

Websites

*Bank of England inflation calculator. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

*Wilhelm von Humboldt: Linguistic Correspondence https://wvh-briefe.bbaw.de/Index

Manuscripts

*British Library. Dept. of MSS. Acquisitions Minutes 1837-1840, ff. 176–186.

*British Library. BLCA/S06/11 [DH52/11]: British Museum, Department of Printed Books: Register of Accessions, 5 Jul 1842 - 11 Jan 1843, ff. 18v–20r.

*British Library. BLCA/S07/01 [DH53/1]: British Museum, Department of Printed Books: Register of Donations, 8 Jan 1836 - Feb 1848.

*Royal Asiatic Society Archives; GB 891 RAS COLL5/1/2. Subseries. 1827-1950: Letter from Michael Faraday of the Royal Institution to Sir Alexander Johnstone of the Society, 11 April 1827.

*Royal Asiatic Society Archives; GB 891 SC52-SC52/2: John Crawfurd, ʽOn the Ruins of Boro Budor in Javaʼ, Batavia, 10 March 1817.

*Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Accessions register for Oriental manuscripts. https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht/?PPN=PPN1898331014&PHYSID=PHYS_0078

Published works

Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir. 1970. The Hikayat Abdullah. An annotated translation by A.H. Hill. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press.

Bastin, John. 2019. Sir Stamford Raffles and some of his friends and contemporaries: a memoir of the founder of Singapore. Singapore: World Scientific.

Behrend, T.E. 2005. “Frontispiece architecture in Ngayogyakarta: notes on structure and sources.ˮ Archipel 69, pp. 39–60.

Blagden, C.O. 1909. “Review of: Marong Mahawangsa, the Keddah Annals. Translated from the Malay by Lieut.-Col. James Low. Bangkok: American Presbytarian Mission Press, 1908.ˮ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 41(2), pp. 525–531.

Blagden, C.O. 1910. “Indonesian alphabets.ˮ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 42(1), p. 164.

Carey, P.B.R. 1980. The archive of Yogyakarta. Volume I. Documents relating to politics and internal court affairs. Oxford: published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press (Oriental Documents; 3).

Carey, P.B.R. 1992. The British in Java 1811-1816: a Javanese account. A text edition, English synopsis and commentary on British Library Additional Manuscript 12330, Babad Bedhah ing Ngayogyakarta. Oxford: published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press.

Carey, P.B.R. 2007. The power of prophecy: Prince Dipanagara and the end of an old order in Java, 1785-1855. Leiden: KITLV.

Carey, P.B.R. 2020. “The Origins of the John Crawfurd Collection of Javanese Manuscripts in the British Library: An Overview. [An updated version of the ‘Introduction’ (Carey 1980: 1–15), published in Indonesian as ‘Koleksi naskah-naskah Jawa John Crawfurd di British Library: sebuah ikhtisar’].ˮ Prajnaparamita: jurnal Museum Nasional, Edisi 08/2020, pp. 7–46.

Carey, P.B.R. 2022. “Raden Saleh Syarif Bustaman (circa 1811-1880) and the Java War (1825-30): A Dissident Family History.ˮ Archipel 103, pp. 87–126.

Carey, Peter & Hoadley, Mason C. (eds.). 2000. The archive of Yogyakarta. Volume II. Documents relating to economic and agrarian affairs. Oxford: published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press (Oriental Documents; 11).

Crawfurd, John. 1820. History of the Indian Archipelago: containing an account of the manners, arts, languages, religions, institutions, and commerce of its inhabitants. Edinburgh: Archibald Constable & Co. 3 vols.

Crawfurd, John. 1828. Journal of an embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Courts of Siam and Cochin-China, exhibiting a view of the actual state of those kingdoms. London: Henry Colburn.

Crawfurd, John. 1829. Journal of an embassy from the Governor-General of India to the court of Ava in the year 1827. London: Henry Colburn.

Crawfurd, John. 1852. A grammar and dictionary of the Malay language, with a preliminary dissertation. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 2 vols.

Crawfurd, John. 1856. A descriptive dictionary of the Indian islands & adjacent countries. London: Bradbury & Evans.

Ding Choo Ming. 1987. “Access to Malay manuscripts.ˮ Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 143(4), pp. 425–451.

Douglas, Robert Kennaway. 1877. Catalogue of Chinese printed books, manuscripts and drawings in the library of the British Museum. London: British Museum.

Dulaurier, E. 1840. “Catalogue des MSS Malays appartenant à la Bibliothèque de la Société Royale Asiatique de Londres.ˮ Journal Asiatique 10, pp. 53–83.

Gallop, Annabel Teh. 2010. “The Boné Qur’an from south Sulawesi.ˮ In Margaret S. Graves & Benoît Junot (eds.), Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum: arts of the book and calligraphy. Istanbul: Aga Khan Trust for Culture and Sakip Sabanci University & Museum, pp. 162–173.

Gallop, Annabel Teh. 2013a. Reading Malay manuscripts with children. Asian and African studies blog, 12 Dec. 2013: https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2013-12/reading-malay-manuscripts-with-children.html.

Gallop, Annabel Teh. 2013b. Semarang, Javanese city of Malay scribes. Asian and African studies blog, 11 Nov. 2013: https://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2013/11/semarang-javanese-city-of-malay-scribes.html?_ga=2.119245325.548576299.1735572719-1696026190.1699179473.

Gallop, Annabel Teh. 2015. “A Jawi sourcebook for the study of Malay palaeography and orthography. Introduction.ˮ Indonesia and the Malay World 43(125), pp. 13–39.

Gallop, Annabel Teh. 2019. “Southeast Asian manuscripts from the collection of Sir Hans Sloane in the British Library.ˮ Wacana 20(1), pp. 36–52.

Gallop, Annabel Teh. 2020a. “The Javanese Manuscripts from Yogyakarta Digitisation Project.ˮ SEALG Newsletter 52, pp. 36–61.

Gallop, Annabel Teh. 2020b. The royal library of Bone: Bugis and Makasar manuscripts in the British Library. Asian and African studies blog, 6 January 2020: https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2020-01/the-royal-library-of-bone-bugis-and-makassar-manuscripts-in-the-british-librar.html.

Gallop, Annabel Teh. Forthcoming. “Malay and Indonesian manuscripts in the Royal Asiatic Society: the evolution of the collection.ˮ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

Gallop, Annabel Teh & Arps, Bernard. 1991. Golden letters: writing traditions of Indonesia. Surat emas: budaya tulis di Indonesia. London: British Library.

Harris, P.R. 1998. A history of the British Museum Library 1753-1973. London: The British Library.

Humboldt, Wilhelm von. 1836-1839. Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java, nebst einer Einleitung über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts. 3 vols. Berlin. https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb10903877?page=4,5.

Humboldt, Wilhelm von. 2017. Südsee- und südostasiatische Sprachen. Vorarbeiten zu ‘Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java’, edited by Ulrike Folie, Volker Heeschen & Frank Zimmer. Paderborn: Schöningh.

Keyzer, S. 1854. “De Javaansche handschriften te Londen.ˮ Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 2, pp. 330–344.

Klatt, J. 1890. “Die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin.ˮ Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen (May 1890) 7(5), pp. 177–196. https://www.digizeitschriften.de/d/338182551_0007?tify=%7B%22pages%22%3A%5B212%5D%2C%22view%22%3A%22thumbnails%22%7D.

Langdon, Marcus. 2013. Penang: the fourth Presidency 1805-1830. Volume One. Ships, men and mansions. Penang: Areca Books.

Macdonald, David. 1840? A narrative of the early Life and Services of Captⁿ D. Macdonald [...] embracing an unbroken period of twenty-two years, extracted from his journal, and other official documents. 3rd ed. Weymouth. http://www.sabrizain.org/malaya/library/capmacdonald.pdf.

Macknight, Campbell, Paeni, Mukhlis, and Hadrawi, Muhlis. 2020. The Bugis chronicle of Bone. Canberra: Australian National University Press.

Marrison, G.E. 1981. “John Crawfurd and the Malay manuscript collection in the British Library.ˮ Majalah Perpustakaan Malaysia 9, pp. 5–12.

Marsden, William (transl.). 1818. The Travels of Marco Polo, a Venetian, in the thirteenth century: being a description, by that early traveller, of remarkable places and things, in the Eastern parts of the world. London: printed for the author.

Matthes, B.F. 1875. Kort verslag aangaande alle mij in Europa bekende Makassaarsche en Boeginesche handschriften. Amsterdam: Spin. https://www.oxis.org/resources-3/catalogues/matthes-1875a.pdf .

Meij, Dick van der. 2022. Three unusual illuminated Javanese manuscripts. Asian and African studies blog, 2 May 2022: https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2022/05/three-unusual-illuminated-javanese-manuscripts.html.

Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt & Markus Messling, “Wilhelm von Humboldt,ˮ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/wilhelm-humboldt/; accessed 30.12.2024.

Müller, Martin. 2013. Civilization, culture, and race in John Crawfurdʼs discourses on Southeast Asia: continuities and changes, c.1814-1868. [Ph.D. thesis]. Florence: European University Institute.

Pigeaud, Theodore G. Th. 1975. Javanese and Balinese manuscripts, and some codices written in related idioms spoken in Java and Bali. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag (Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland; XXXI).

Plomp, M. 1993. “Traditional bookbindings from Indonesia. Materials and decorations.ˮ Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 149(3), pp. 571–592.

Pudjiastuti, Titik and Hanstein, Thoralf (eds.). 2016. Catalogue of Indonesian manuscripts: collection Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußicher Kulturbesitz. Jakarta: Museum Nasional Republik Indonesia.

Raffles, Thomas Stamford. 1817. The history of Java. With an introduction by John Bastin. [Facsimile reprint of the 1817 ed.] Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1965, 2 vols.

Ricklefs, M.C. 1969. “An inventory of the Javanese manuscript collection in the British Museum.ˮ Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 125(2), pp. 241–262.

Ricklefs, M.C. and Voorhoeve, P. 1977. Indonesian manuscripts in Great Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press (London Oriental Bibliographies; 5).

Ricklefs, M.C., Voorhoeve, P., and Gallop, A.T. 2014. Indonesian manuscripts in Great Britain. New edition with Addenda et corrigenda. Jakarta: École française d’Extrême-Orient, Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia, Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia.

Salmon, Claudine. 1991. “The Han family of East Java: entrepreneurship and politics (18th-19th centuries).ˮ Archipel 41, pp. 53–87.

Skinner, C. 1976. “The author of the Hikayat Perintah Negeri Benggala.ˮ Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 132(2/3), pp. 195–206.

Solleveld, Floris. 2020. “Expanding the comparative view: Humboldtʼs Über die Kawi-Sprache and its language materials.ˮ Historiographia Linguistica 47(1), pp. 49–78.

Thorn, William. 1815. Memoir of the conquest of Java, with the subsequent operations of the British forces in the Oriental Archipelago. London: T. Egerton.

Wieringa, E.P. 2024. “Bissige Giftschlangen als Wächter fabelhafter Geschichtsschreibung in einer Zeit der kolonialen Erniedrigung: die Schlangenilluminationen in Ms. or. quart. 355 / Venomous Snakes as Guardians of a Legendary Book on the History of Java, written in a Period of Colonial Humiliation: the Snake Illuminations in Ms. or. quart. 355.ˮ In A. Bonte (ed.), Sammellust und Wissensdrang: Vier Jahrhunderte Asiatica in Berlin, Beiträge aus der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz / A passion for collecting, a thirst for knowledge: four centuries of Asiatica in Berlin. Berlin: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, pp.150–153.

Wieringa, E.P. & Hanstein, Thoralf (eds.). 2015. SchriftSprache / Aksara dan bahasa. Berlin, Jakarta: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußicher Kulturbesitz; Museum Nasional Indonesia.

Haut de page

Notes

1 Langdon 2013: 153 n. 275.

2 A paper by John Crawfurd, ʽOn the Ruins of Boro Budor in Javaʼ, is dated Batavia, March 10th 1817 (RAS Archives GB 891 SC52-SC52/2).

3 See Carey 2007: 297–301; Bastin 2019: 336–337 n. 136.

4 Humboldt wrote to Crawfurd in French, and Crawfurd replied in English. See Humboldt 2017 for the print version of the correspondence.

5 Wilhelm von Humboldt to John Crawfurd, early 1831. In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online Edition of the Linguistic Correspondence. Berlin. Version of 15.03.2023. URL: https://wvh-briefe.bbaw.de/335.

6 Ibid.

7 John Crawfurd to Wilhelm von Humboldt, 16.05.1831. In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online Edition of the Linguistic Correspondence. Berlin. Version of 15.03.2023. URL: https://wvh-briefe.bbaw.de/243

8 Wilhelm von Humboldt to John Crawfurd, [05.]08.1831. In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online Edition of the Linguistic Correspondence. Berlin. Version of 15.3.2023. URL: https://wvh-briefe.bbaw.de/336

9 John Crawfurd to Wilhelm von Humboldt, 28.08.1831. In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online Edition of the Linguistic Correspondence. Berlin. Version of 15.03.2023. URL: https://wvh-briefe.bbaw.de/244

10 Wilhelm von Humboldt to John Crawfurd, September to December 1831, date unclear. In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online Edition of the Linguistic Correspondence. Berlin. Version of 15.3.2023. URL: https://wvh-briefe.bbaw.de/337

11 Wilhelm von Humboldt to John Crawfurd, August 1831 to April 1832. In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online Edition of the Linguistic Correspondence. Berlin. Version of 15.3.2023. URL: https://wvh-briefe.bbaw.de/338

12 Schlegel is perhaps best known in Germany as a leading Romantic critic and poet who translated Shakespeare, but he was also a linguist and professor of Sanskrit, who edited the Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana.

13 Wilhelm von Humboldt to August Wilhelm von Schlegel, October 24, 1832. In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online Edition of the Linguistic Correspondence. Berlin. Version of 15.3.2023. URL: https://wvh-briefe.bbaw.de/1109. This description allows this Old Javanese manuscript to be identified as BL Add MS 12279, indicating that Humboldt had eventually returned the manuscript to Crawfurd.

14 Pers. comm., Thoralf Hanstein, 24 January 2025.

15 For the full contents of this volume see Matthes 1875: 99–101; see also Pudjiastuti & Hanstein 2016: 340–341.

16 With thanks to Campbell Macknight for this information (pers. comm. 8.1.2025).

17 Pudjiastuti & Hanstein 2016: 342; NB not in Pigeaud 1975: 172, 225.

18 Klatt 1890: 180.

19 Pers. comm., Thoralf Hanstein, 10 April 2019.

20 ‘I have received at this very moment the works that you have been kind enough to send me’ (Je reçois dans ce moment même les ouvrages que Vous avez eû la bonté de m’envoyer) Wilhelm von Humboldt to Philippus Pieter Roorda van Eysinga, 14.02.1832. In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online Edition of the Linguistic Correspondence. Berlin. Version of 15.03.2023. URL: https://wvh-briefe.bbaw.de/365

21 Gallop 2013a; Wieringa & Hanstein 2015: 34–37; Pudjiastuti & Hanstein 2016: 351.

22 Matthes 1875: 99; Pudjiastuti & Hanstein 2016: 351.

23 BL Add MS 12282, 12286, 12292, 12322 and 12323 (Ricklefs, Voorhoeve and Gallop 2014: 50).

24 RAS Archives; GB 891 RAS COLL5/1/2·Subseries·1827–1950.

25 According to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator, £250 in 1842 would be worth £23,959 in 2025; £230 would be worth £22,042. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

26 A note of explanation on British Library shelfmarks: the shelfmark sequence ‘Add MS’ [Additional Manuscript] was initially used for all manuscript acquisitions, both western and oriental, until the creation of the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts in 1867, after which oriental manuscripts were given the new shelfmark sequence ‘Or.’[Oriental] and ‘Add MS’ was reserved for western manuscripts. However, oriental manuscripts with Additional shelfmarks were conventionally referred to in published catalogues simply with the shelfmark ‘Add’ rather than ‘Add MS’, which always designated a western manuscript. With the introduction of the British Library’s automated ordering system in the early 21st century, all manuscripts with Additional shelfmarks, in whichever language, had to cite the shelfmark in the full form ‘Add MS’.

27 Assistant to the Director of the British Museum, 1978-2004, and author of many publications on the history of the British Museum.

28 Madden was famously acerbic, and did not get on with his colleagues at the British Museum. On his death in 1873 he bequeathed his journals and other private papers to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, where they were to remain unopened until 1920. Since around 2010, a group of current and former British Museum and British Library staff have formed the Madden Society, to transcribe the Madden diaries. All the quotations from the Madden journals in this article are taken from transcripts prepared by Jean Rankine and Tony Spence for the Madden Society, made available by Marjorie Caygill, 14 Nov. 2018.

29 According to the online Bank of England Inflation calculator, £516 in 1840 would be equivalent to £44,550 in 2025; the suggested price per volume of £3-4 would be equivalent of £259-345 per volume in 2025.

30 British Library. Dept. of MSS. Acquisitions Minutes 1837-1840, f. 186r.

31 Édouard Dulaurier (1807-1881) was a French orientalist. In 1838 he visited the Royal Asiatic Society in London, and compiled a handlist of its Malay manuscripts (Dulaurier 1840) as well as making copies of at least eight Malay manuscripts, which are now in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris.

32 On 30 March 1839 Barlow Hoy presented to the British Museum three palm leaf manuscripts in Pali language written in Khmer script (Add MS 11552-4). The three manuscripts each have a wrapper made out of reed sticks attached at each end to a textile strip, forming a flexible outer frame. No other examples of such wrappers made of sticks are known, which explains Crawfurd’s surprise. I am most grateful to Jana Igunma for this information (pers. comm., 31.3.2025).

33 BL Egerton MS 765, a gold letter in Balinese from the princes of Badung and Mengwi to the Dutch governor of Semarang in 1768, purchased by the British Museum in 1839 from Mr J Sams for £5 (Gallop & Arps 1991: 104).

34 The varying number of manuscripts cited in the different iterations—from Crawfurd’s original listing of 1840, through to the assignation of shelfmarks in the British Museum in 1842—reflects the fact that some items, such as no. 78, ‘A collection of original letters, grants of land, &c.’ were eventually bound in three volumes, while other smaller items ended up bound together in a single volume.

35 Setrawijaya was a mantri of the army commander Raden Tumenggung Sumadiningrat (ca. 1760-1812), who was killed during the British attack on the kraton, and his name occurs in several documents from the Sumadiningrat household published in the Archive of Yogyakarta (Carey 1980: 145; Carey & Hoadley 2000: 83, 347, 392). Setrawijaya later travelled with Crawfurd and became his amanuensis (Peter Carey, pers. comm., 8.1.2025).

36 Correctly identified by Keyzer (1854: 336, 338). It is likely that these two Qur’an manuscripts are also from the Kraton library, but were not examined or listed by Ricklefs (Gallop 2020a: 58–59) as they are not written in Javanese.

37 With thanks to Peter Carey, Nancy Florida and John Paterson for advice on this question.

38 BL Add MS 12289, 12294 and 12316.

39 RAS Raffles Java 4 and 7.

40 Marisson (1981: 9–10) gives a full listing of Crawfurd’s Malay manuscripts by likely place of acquisition; I am indebted to Ding (1987: 430) for a reference to this article.

41 Han Chan Piet (1759-1827), Chinese Majoor of Surabaya, from a prominent Chinese family (with thanks to E. Harrison for the identification, 5 February 2025). On the Han family in Java, see Salmon (1991).

42 BLCA/S06/11 [DH52/11]: British Museum, Department of Printed Books: Register of Accessions, 5 Jul 1842 - 11 Jan 1843, ff. 18v-20r.

43 The number of constituent volumes can be reconstructed from the Register entry as follows: Reg. nos. 6-39: Parts 1-10, in 34 volumes; Reg. nos. 40-56: Parts 11-27, in 44 volumes; Reg. nos. 57-86: Parts 28-59, in 34 volumes.

44 Pers. Comm., Wallace Kwong, Reference specialist, Rare Books Reading Room, British Library, 17 Apr. 2025.

45 The BL reference copy of the catalogue entry for this item is annotated in pencil ‘15022.a. & b.1’ (Douglas 1877: 11) but there is nothing on the shelf at 15022.b.1, and no evidence that this shelfmark was ever used.

46 BLCA/S07/01 [DH53/1]: British Museum, Department of Printed Books: Register of Donations, 8 Jan. 1836 – Feb. 1848; with grateful thanks to V. Ogunsanya of the BL Archives for locating this entry.

47 The plates by Adi Warna in Crawfurd’s History (1820) are as follows: vol. 1, Pl. 6, facing p. 163, ‘Javanese Houses / Drawn & Engd. by W.H. Lizars from Sketches by Adi Warna, a native of Java’; and vol. 2, between pp. 202–207, Pls. 19–24, and Pl. 26, of Borobudur, and Pls. 25, 27, 30, of Prambanan. Unfortunately, the original drawings, along with any other private papers of Crawfurd, have not been found.

48 See Gallop, forthcoming.

Haut de page

Table des illustrations

Titre Fig. 1 – John Crawfurd (1783-1868), by an unknown photographer; albumen print, ca. late 1850s. NPG x139792.
Crédits © National Portrait Gallery, London. CC BY licence.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 111k
Titre Fig. 2 – Crawfurd’s letter to Humboldt, sent from the Athenaeum Club along with two Javanese dictionaries. John Crawfurd to Wilhelm von Humboldt, 28.08.1831.
Crédits In: Wilhelm von Humboldt: Online Edition of the Linguistic Correspondence. Berlin. Version of 15.03.2023. URL: https://wvh-briefe.bbaw.de/​244
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 102k
Titre Fig. 3 – Javanese dictionary, inscribed on the first page ‘J. Crawfurd, Athenaeum Pall Mall, London’. The label, ‘80. A Dictionary of the Javanese’ links to the numbered list of Javanese manuscripts Crawfurd offered to the British Museum in 1840. The final inscription records the purchase by the Museum of this manuscript from Crawfurd in February 1842.
Crédits British Library, Add MS 12344, f. 1r
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 264k
Titre Fig. 4 – A piece of card with a German address, found inside the copy of the Bratayuda lent by Crawfurd to Humboldt, and then returned to London.
Crédits Crawfurd collection. British Library, Add MS 12279
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 132k
Titre Fig. 5 – Accessions register for Javanese, Bugis and Malay manuscripts with shelfmarks Ms. or. fol. 401 to 409. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.
Crédits https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/​werkansicht/​?PPN=PPN1898331014&PHYSID=PHYS_0078
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 237k
Titre Fig. 6 – Pencilled sketch of a stick family in the margin of the Malay manuscript Hikayat Dewa Mandu, labelled John Crawfurd Esq. / A. Horatia Crawfurd / Flora Crawfurd.
Crédits Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. fol. 404, p. 77.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-6.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 140k
Titre Fig. 7 – Illuminated frames marking the beginning of the text of an episode from the Bugis literary genre, I La Galigo.
Crédits Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. fol. 403, ff, 2v-3r.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-7.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 221k
Titre Fig. 8 – Decorated frames marking the beginning of the text from a Bugis collection of tolo’ poems.
Crédits Crawfurd collection. British Library, Add MS 12376, ff. 2v-3r
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-8.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 447k
Titre Fig. 9 – A note in Crawfurd’s hand stating ‘A collection containing Hambiya, the story of the Chinese wars and Semoro’ in a compendium of Javanese texts.
Crédits Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. fol. 401.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-9.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 87k
Titre (Left) Fig. 10 – Opening page with illuminated frame of Serat Kanda, 1813, copied by Wongsayuda. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. quart. 355, p. 1.(Right) Fig. 11 – Opening page with illuminated frame of a Babad, 1813, also copied by Wongsayuda. Crawfurd collection. British Library, Add MS 12292, f. 2v.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-10.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 196k
Titre (Left) Fig. 12 – Black leather binding of Serat Kanda, 1813. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. quart. 355(Right) Fig. 13 – Identical black leather binding of a Babad, 1813. Crawfurd collection. British Library, Add MS 12292.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-11.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 133k
Titre Fig. 14 – (Left) Illuminated frame of Babad Pacina in the wadana renggan candhi ‘temple’ style, with a small golden leaf marker at the end of the text. British Library, Add MS 12301, f. 2r.Fig. 15 – (Right) First page of the text of Babad Pacina, with a golden leaf marker in line four, indicating the end of the portion re-copied within the illuminated frames. British Library, Add MS 12301, f. 3r.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-12.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 185k
Titre Fig. 16 – (Left) Javanese brown leather binding with envelope flap and metal clasp, and blind-stamped frame bands, corner pieces and central mediallion. British Library, Add MS 12314.Fig. 17 – (Right) Brown British Museum leather binding, with stamped ornaments in emulation of the Javanese style. British Library, Add MS 12344.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-13.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 129k
Titre Figs. 18 and 19 – 通鑑綱目 (Tong Jian Gang Mu), published in 1806.
Crédits British Library, 15290.a.1, showing the spine of the first volume, and the first page.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-14.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 143k
Titre Fig. 20 – 歷代帝王紀要 (Li Dai Di Wang Ji Yao), a chronological list of the emperors of China to the end of the Ming dynasty, published in 1737.
Crédits British Library, 15296.a.10.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-15.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 241k
Titre Fig. 21 – Crawfurd’s note within 歷代帝王紀要 (Li Dai Di Wang Ji Yao), ‘A chronological list of the emperors of China’.
Crédits British Library, 15296.a.10.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-16.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 204k
Titre Fig. 22 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, p. 1.
Crédits British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-17.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 487k
Titre Fig. 23 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, p. 2.
Crédits British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-18.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 547k
Titre Fig. 24 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, p. 3.
Crédits British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-19.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 417k
Titre Fig. 25 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Javanese MSS, p. 4.
Crédits British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-20.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 638k
Titre Fig. 26 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Javanese MSS, p. 5.
Crédits British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-21.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 651k
Titre Fig. 27 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Javanese MSS, p. 6.
Crédits British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-22.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 568k
Titre Fig. 28 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Javanese MSS, p. 7.
Crédits British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-23.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 555k
Titre Fig. 29 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Listing of Malay MSS, p. 8.
Crédits British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-24.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 600k
Titre Fig. 30 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, Description of Burmese and Bugis MSS, p. 9.
Crédits British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-25.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 226k
Titre Fig. 31 – John Crawfurd’s letter to the Trustees of the British Museum, 26 April 1840, last page with Summary of the number of volumes offered, p. 10.
Crédits British Museum Archives, Original Papers 1840, C 9/5/40.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/docannexe/image/9377/img-26.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 334k
Haut de page

Pour citer cet article

Référence papier

Annabel Teh Gallop, « Libraries within libraries: the John Crawfurd collection in the British Library »Archipel, 110 | 2025, 177-238.

Référence électronique

Annabel Teh Gallop, « Libraries within libraries: the John Crawfurd collection in the British Library »Archipel [En ligne], 110 | 2025, mis en ligne le 16 décembre 2025, consulté le 07 février 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/9377 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/15d9m

Haut de page

Auteur

Annabel Teh Gallop

The British Library, London, UK.

Articles du même auteur

Haut de page

Droits d’auteur

CC-BY-ND-4.0

Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY-ND 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont susceptibles d’être soumis à des autorisations d’usage spécifiques.

Haut de page
Rechercher dans OpenEdition Search

Vous allez être redirigé vers OpenEdition Search