Sir Harry St. George Ord (17 June 1819 – 20 August 1885) was a British colonial administrator who served as Governor of Bermuda between 1861 and 1864, Governor of the Straits Settlements between 1867 and 1873, and Governor of Western Australia between 1877 and 1880.
Education and career
Ord was the son of Henry Gough Ord and grandson of
Craven Ord (1756–1832) of Greenstead Hall,
Essex, a prominent antiquarian. He was educated at the Royal Military Academy at
Woolwich, (1835–1837). He served in the
Royal Engineers, (1837–1856), principally in the
West Indies, West Africa, and the Anglo-French expedition to the Baltic (1854), during the
Crimean War.
Ord later held many important colonial posts, including:
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Commissioner of the Gold Coast (1855–1856)
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Commissioner at the Courts of Paris and The Hague (1856–1857)
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Governor of Dominica (1857–1861)
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Governor of Bermuda (1861–1864)
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Special Commissioner to West Africa (1864–1867)
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Governor of the Straits Settlements (1867–1873)
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Governor of Western Australia (1877–1880)
Governor of Straits Settlements
Sir Harry Ord, whom the second
Colonial Office appointed in 1867 as the Governor of the Straits Settlements, was at first given no instructions regarding the Colony's relations with the
Malay States. His appointment did not start well; he would arrive at the Settlements two weeks before his term began, and by the time he was inaugurated, had managed to offend almost everyone in the capital including Chief Justice Designate Peter Benson Maxwell with his crusty demeanor and insistence on being referred to as 'Excellency'.
He was unpopular in the Straits Settlements, but was an ambitious and energetic man, who was ready to do what he could to restore order and promote trade in the Peninsula. Conditions in
British Malaya at that time were extremely unsettled. Within months of his arrival, representatives of the leading firms had formed the Straits Settlement Association under the leadership of
John Crawfurd, which vigorously opposed any increase in government power and would bombard his administration with numerous petitions to the House of Lords criticising many of his policies.
More pressing however were the numerous quarrels of the Ethnic Malays, intensified by feuds between competing groups of Chinese miners, and the links of the Chinese with the British settlements threatened to involve these too in the trouble. After some experience of negotiating with Malays and Thai people, Ord worked out a policy under which he proposed to share the supervision of the Peninsula between Britain and Siam. This policy was disapproved by the Colonial Office, and Ord was directed to abstain from all interference in the affairs of the Malay States.
Life
Ord married Julia Graham of
Exmouth daughter of Admiral James Carpenterin on 28 June 1846 by whom he had three sons.
[ Sir Harry Ord died on 20 August 1885 from heart attack and was buried in the churchyard of St. Martin's parish church in Fornham St. Martin, Suffolk, England. The village institute in Fornham was built in Ord's memory with funds donated by the Abu Bakar of Johor.][
]
The Ord River in the Kimberley region of Western Australia was named in his honour, as was Ord Street, Fremantle.
Awards
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K.C.M.G., 1877
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G.C.M.G., 1881
Sources
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Colonial Office List, various list, DNB
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One Hundred Years of Singapore (1819)
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C.D. Cowan, Nineteenth Century Malaya: The Origins of British Political Control, (1961)
External links
