Warren Delabere Barnes (; 22 September 1865 – 28 October 1911) was a British colonial administrator. He was a member of the Malayan Civil Service from 1888 to 1910 and was

Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong The Chief Secretary for Administration, commonly known as the Chief Secretary of Hong Kong, is the most senior principal official of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The Chief Secretary is head of the Governme ...

during five months in 1911, until his sudden death.

Biography

Warren Barnes attended

King's College School King's College School, also known as Wimbledon, KCS, King's and KCS Wimbledon, is a public school in Wimbledon, southwest London, England. The school was founded in 1829 by King George IV, as the junior department of King's College London an ...

and Pembroke College,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

, where he graduated in 1887.

Malay Peninsula

He was appointed to the Straits Settlements Civil Service as a Cadet by the Secretary of State in 1888, and was sent a year later to study the

Teochew dialect Teochew or Chaozhou (, , , Teochew endonym: , Shantou dialect: ) is a dialect of Chaoshan Min, a Southern Min language, that is spoken by the Teochew people in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong and by their diaspora around the world. ...

in Shantou. He returned to Singapore in 1890 and passed his final examination in Teochew in November 1891. He was then appointed 3rd Magistrate in Penang, 1893; acting Protector of Chinese in Perak later in the same year; Warden of Mines, senior magistrate, and Protector of Chinese in

Pahang Pahang (; Jawi: , Pahang Hulu Malay: ''Paha'', Pahang Hilir Malay: ''Pahaeng'', Ulu Tembeling Malay: ''Pahaq)'' officially Pahang Darul Makmur with the Arabic honorific ''Darul Makmur'' (Jawi: , "The Abode of Tranquility") is a sultanate and ...

, January 1899; Assistant Protector of Chinese, Penang, 1901; acting Commissioner of Lands and Mines, Federated Malay States, August 1903; acting British

Resident Resident may refer to: People and functions * Resident minister, a representative of a government in a foreign country * Resident (medicine), a stage of postgraduate medical training * Resident (pharmacy), a stage of postgraduate pharmaceuti ...

, Pahang, November 1903; acting Protector of Chinese Straits Settlements, 1904. In May 1904, he was appointed Secretary for Chinese Affairs, Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States. In February 1909, he attended the

International Opium Commission The International Opium Commission was a meeting convened on February 1 to February 26, 1909 in Shanghai that represented one of the first steps toward international drug prohibition. Dr. Hamilton Wright and Episcopal Bishop Charles Henry Bren ...

in Shanghai. In January 1910, he returned to Pahang as British Resident.

''Elytranthe barnesii'' Gamble

In 1900, Barnes conducted an expedition to Gunung Benom in Pahang, with the main purpose of erecting a trigonometrical beacon on the mountain. Leaving Raub on 31 August, he reached a subsidiary summit of Gunung Benom, which he supposed to be Gunung Kluang Terbang. He was back at Raub on 21 September. During the expedition, he collected plants, of which 122 species collected at an altitude of were listed by

Henry Nicholas Ridley Henry Nicholas Ridley CMG (1911), MA (Oxon), FRS, FLS, F.R.H.S. (10 December 1855 – 24 October 1956) was an English botanist, geologist and naturalist who lived much of his life in Singapore. He was instrumental in promoting rubber trees i ...

. By 1913, '' Elytranthe barnesii''

Gamble Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three eleme ...

of the family

Loranthaceae Loranthaceae, commonly known as the showy mistletoes, is a family of flowering plants. It consists of about 75 genera and 1,000 species of woody plants, many of them hemiparasites. The three terrestrial species are '' Nuytsia floribunda'' (the ...

, a plant that he had collected, had been named after him. The plant has been described as a parasite of ''

Durio zibethinus ''Durio zibethinus'' is the most common tree species in the genus '' Durio'' that are known as durian and have edible fruit also known as durian. As with most other durian species, the edible flesh emits a distinctive odour that is strong and pe ...

'' (durian).

Hong Kong

Barnes was appointed

on 7 June 1911, taking up the office vacated on 21 January by Sir

Francis Henry May Sir Francis Henry May (; 14 March 1860 – 6 February 1922) was a British colonial administrator who served as Governor of Fiji from 1911 to 1912 and Governor of Hong Kong from 1912 to 1918. Early life and education May was born in Dublin, Ire ...

, who had been appointed

Governor of Fiji Fiji was a British Crown colony from 1874 to 1970, and an independent dominion in the Commonwealth from 1970 to 1987. During this period, the head of state was the British monarch, but in practice his or her functions were normally exercised loca ...

. Barnes became an ex officio member of the

Legislative Council of Hong Kong The Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (LegCo) is the unicameral legislature of Hong Kong. It sits under China's " one country, two systems" constitutional arrangement, and is the power centre of Hong Ko ...

on 8 June 1911. On 4 October 1911, he represented the British Government, together with J. W. Jamieson, HBM Consul-General at Canton, at the opening of the Chinese Section from

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

of the

Kowloon–Canton Railway The Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR; ) was a railway network in Hong Kong.Legislative Council information paper CB(1)357/07-08(0 THB(T) CR 8/986/00, CB(1)1749/07-08(0/ref> It was owned and operated by the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (KCR ...

Death

Barnes died on Saturday 28 October 1911, at age 46, of heart failure while playing polo in Happy Valley, Hong Kong. Arthur Winbolt Brewin, CMG, was appointed acting Colonial Secretary on 30 October 1911 and remained in this position until 28 November 1911.

Cecil Clementi Sir Cecil Clementi (; 1 September 1875 – 5 April 1947) was a British colonial administrator who served as Governor of Hong Kong from 1925 to 1930, and Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Straits Settlements from 1930 to 1934. Early lif ...

acted as Colonial Secretary from 22 January to 6 June and from 29 November 1911.

Claud Severn Sir Claud Severn ( Chinese Translated Name: 施勳) (1869–1933) was a British colonial administrator. Severn joined the colonial civil service in British Malaya in 1894 and worked under the Governor of the Straits Settlements. In 1912, he beca ...

of the Federated Malay States Service was appointed as the next Colonial Secretary and took office in 1912.

Memberships

* He was elected a member of the Straits Branch of the

Royal Asiatic Society The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...

in 1893 * He was elected a fellow of the

Geological Society of London The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

in 1902 * He was elected a fellow of the Royal Colonial Institute in 1911

Works

Several of his papers were published in the '' Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society'': * (The list of species by

is at pp. 10–18) * * * *

References

External links

Grave of Warren Delabere Barnes
at

Hong Kong Cemetery Hong Kong Cemetery, formerly Hong Kong (Happy Valley) Cemetery and before that Hong Kong Colonial Cemetery, is one of the early Christian List of cemeteries in Hong Kong, cemeteries in Hong Kong dating to its colonial Hong Kong, colonial era beg ...

Inscription
Additional articles with career chronology * * Mentions of Barnes as plant collector * * * * ''Elytranthe barnesii'' Gamble * * *

International Plant Names Index The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) describes itself as "a database of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of seed plants, ferns and lycophytes." Coverage of plant names is best at the rank of species and genus. It inclu ...

entry fo
''Elytranthe barnesii'' Gamble
* JSTOR Global Plants entry fo
''Elytranthe barnesii'' Gamble

Zipcode Zoo entry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barnes, Warren Delabere Administrators in British Malaya Chief Secretaries of Hong Kong Members of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge 1865 births 1911 deaths