Charles Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak

File:Coin Sarawak 1cent 1870.jpg

Rajah Charles as depicted on a one cent coin

Charles Anthoni Johnson Brooke Template:Post-nominals (born Charles Anthoni Johnson; 3 June 1829 – 17 May 1917) was the head of state of Sarawak from 3 August 1868 until his death. He succeeded his uncle, James Brooke, who was the first of the so-called "White Rajahs" of Sarawak.

Biography

Charles Anthoni Johnson was born in Berrow Vicarage, Burnham, Somerset, in England, to the Reverend Francis Charles and Emma Frances Johnson, née Brooke. Emma was the younger sister of James Brooke, the first Rajah of Sarawak. In addition to Charles, Francis and Emma had other children: Captain John Brooke Johnson (1823–1868) (later Brooke), Mary Anna Johnson (b. 1824), Harriet Helena Johnson (b. 1826), Charlotte Frances Johnson (b. 1828), Captain (William) Frederic Johnson (b. 1830), Emma Lucy Johnson (b. 1832), Margaret Henrietta Johnson (1834–1845), Georgianna Brooke Johnson (1836–1854), James Stuart Johnson (1839–1840), and Henry Stuart Johnson (b. 1841).

Brooke was educated at Crewkerne Grammar School and entered the Royal Navy. He entered the service of his uncle James, the first Rajah of Sarawak, in 1852, took his name, and began as Resident at the Lundu station in the Raj of Sarawak. In the 1857 rebellion against the White Rajah, Charles Brooke helped his uncle put down the rebellion led by Liu Shan Bang with his force composed of Ibans and local Bidayuh tribes. It is noted that Brooke's Iban forces pursued the remaining rebels to Bau, where they killed the 3,000 villagers including women, children and the elderly in a massacre. In 1865, James named Charles as his successor.

Brooke married Margaret Alice Lili de Windt at Highworth, Wiltshire, on 28 October 1869; she was raised to the title of Ranee of Sarawak with the style of Her Highness on the same day. They had six children, three of whom survived infancy:

• Dayang Ghita Brooke (1870–1873)
• James Harry Brooke (1872–1873)
• Charles Clayton Brooke (1872–1873)
• Charles Vyner Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak (1874–1963)
• Bertram Willes Dayrell Brooke, Tuan Muda (1876–1965)
• Henry Keppel Brooke, Tuan Bongsu (1878–1927)

Brooke’s son Charles Vyner Brooke succeeded him as the third and last White Rajah. He had another son, Esca Brooke (1868–1951) from a previous marriage with a Malay woman known as Dayang Mastiah. Esca was sent to England at the age of six, cared for and later adopted by the Reverend William Daykin. Eventually, they moved to Canada. Esca married and had three children. Brooke lost an eye at some point in a riding accident, and allegedly replaced it with a false eye intended for a stuffed albatross.

Brooke resigned his commission in the Royal Navy in 1861 and continued the work his uncle had started, suppressing piracy, slavery, and head-hunting, while encouraging trade and development and expanding the borders of his domain as the opportunities arose. In 1891 he established the Sarawak Museum, the first museum in Borneo. Brooke founded a boys' school in 1903, called the 'Government Lay School', where Malays could be taught in the Malay language. This was the forerunner of SMK Green Road. By the time of his death, Britain had established a protectorate over Sarawak, it had a parliamentary government, a railway, and oil had been discovered.

All three White Rajahs are buried in St Leonard's Church in the village of Sheepstor on Dartmoor, Devon.

Honours

British Honours

• Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG), 1888

At least two Bornean species were named in Brooke's honour:

• Brooke's Squirrel (Sundasciurus brookei), named by Oldfield Thomas
• Cervus brookei, a deer named by Charles Hose in 1893

See also

• Fort Margherita

Further reading

• Dictionary of National Biography entry