Olivia Mariamne Raffles
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Olivia Mariamne Devenish (16 February 1771 – 26 November 1814) was the spouse of Sir Stamford Raffles, vice governor of
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
(1811–1816) from 1805 to 1814. A monument was erected to her memory in the botanical garden of
Buitenzorg Bogor ( su, , nl, Buitenzorg) is a city in the West Java province, Indonesia. Located around south of the national capital of Jakarta, Bogor is the 6th largest city in the Jakarta metropolitan area and the 14th overall nationwide.Madras Presidency The Madras Presidency, or the Presidency of Fort St. George, also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision (presidency) of British India. At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of southern India, including the ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. The daughter of George or Godfrey Devenish, she was raised in
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
. Olivia was married in
Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
in 1793 to Jacob Cassivelaun Fancourt, who died in 1800, and in 1805 in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
to
Thomas Stamford Raffles Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British statesman who served as the Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816, and Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. He is ...
. It was commonly said that her second husband, Raffles, was helped in his career through her relationship with his superior. While Stamford Raffles was governor on Java, she introduced many social reforms in her capacity as first lady, which set the standard for the rest of the century. She showed herself by the side of her husband at official occasions, such as visits to the native rulers, and held receptions for people of all sexes and ethnicity, which was new on Java, as white women had previously isolated themselves from the native population. At this point, the Western colonists at Java mixed their European habits with East Indian ones: for example, white women born in the East Indies used '' Areca catechu'', and they only dressed in European fashion on official occasions, such as going to church, receptions and visits, and otherwise wore the more comfortable Asian dress '' Kebaya'' and
sarong A sarong or sarung () is a large tube or length of fabric, often wrapped around the waist, worn in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Western Asia, Northern Africa, East Africa, West Africa, and on many Pacific islands. The fabric often has woven plaid o ...
.Ulbe Bosma & Remco Raben: Being "Dutch" in the Indies: A History of Creolisation and Empire, 1500-1920 These habits contributed to what European visitors regarded to be the decadence of the colonial lifestyle in the Dutch East Indies. Devenish banned the common use of chewing ''Areca catechu'' by Western women, and removed the pots for this from the reception rooms of the Governor's residence to prevent her guests from using it. She also banned the wearing of the Asian sarong and kebaya gowns by Western women. These informal social reforms remained in place for the rest of the 19th century. It was not until the late 19th century, however, that it became common for Western women in Java to dress in Western clothes in their everyday life, the climate making the Western corset and many skirts uncomfortable.


Death

She died in
Buitenzorg Bogor ( su, , nl, Buitenzorg) is a city in the West Java province, Indonesia. Located around south of the national capital of Jakarta, Bogor is the 6th largest city in the Jakarta metropolitan area and the 14th overall nationwide.West Java West Java ( id, Jawa Barat, su, ᮏᮝ ᮊᮥᮜᮧᮔ᮪, romanized ''Jawa Kulon'') is a province of Indonesia on the western part of the island of Java, with its provincial capital in Bandung. West Java is bordered by the province of Banten ...
, on 26 November 1814, and was buried in
Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...
,
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...
. Her tomb can still be seen in Taman Prasasti Museum, the former European cemetery of Batavia that had been converted into a museum. In the monument that was erected for her in National Botanical Gardens,
Buitenzorg Bogor ( su, , nl, Buitenzorg) is a city in the West Java province, Indonesia. Located around south of the national capital of Jakarta, Bogor is the 6th largest city in the Jakarta metropolitan area and the 14th overall nationwide.

Legacy

The British author Charlotte Louisa Hawkins Dempster claimed in her memoir, ''The Manners of My Time'' (1920), that she was Olivia's great-great-granddaughter through Captain John Hamilton Dempster, the illegitimate younger half brother of George Dempster of Dunnichen and Skibo, a Director of the
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
from 1769, and a key figure of the
Scottish Enlightenment The Scottish Enlightenment ( sco, Scots Enlichtenment, gd, Soillseachadh na h-Alba) was the period in 18th- and early-19th-century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By the eighteenth century ...
movement.Glendinning, Victoria (2012).
Raffles: And the Golden Opportunity
', Profile Books, , 9781847658241.


References


External links


Devenish, Olivia Mariamne (1771-1814) - Historici.nl
{{DEFAULTSORT:Devenish, Olivia Mariamne 1771 births 1814 deaths British rule in Indonesia People from Chennai