Changes & Chances
Chapter 10 The Batavia Chaplaincy
After the energy and vision of the mission chapel era, the following sixty-six years were to be the most disappointing in the church's history, with ministry mostly restricted to the small British community in Batavia and periods when there was no evidence of any Christian ministry. Coming onto the scene at the end of this era, Keen was better informed about it than the Mission Station era. Church archives also include some of the correspondence of the BPC. It is important to get some background about the changes that were taking place in East Asia in general and the NEI in particular because they determined the shape of the English-speaking community. For the wider historical context I found M C Ricklefs’s definitive History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1200 most useful.
1830 had ushered in a new era of prosperity and stability for the colonial regime in Java. In the same year that the costly Central Java War ended with the surrender of Prince Diponegoro, the government established the highly profitable cultuurstelsel (cultivation system). In practice it meant that every village had to pay a land tax in the form of export crops such as coffee, sugar and indigo. The beneficiaries were the Netherlands, colonial Dutch officials, the indigenous aristocratic elite and Chinese entrepreneurs. The poor farmers of Java subsidised the Dutch home economy, the conquest of the outer islands and even ironically the freeing of slaves in Surinam. Unable to concentrate on the production of rice, their staple crop, the farmers experienced a number of serious famines and epidemics. Finally the Dutch conscience was pricked and between 1862 and 1919 the system was gradually dismantled, crop by crop. Concurrently, the government monopoly was ended by the Agrarian Law of 1870, which opened up Java to private enterprise and allowed foreign nationals to take long-term leases of land. This heralded the era of the big plantation estates, many of which were either owned or managed by Britishers. By 1885 private exports were ten times those of the government. The number of European civilians in Java jumped from 17 285 in 1852 to 62 447 in 1900. Throughout this period Batavia grew steadily but undramatically, being outstripped by both Singapore and Surabaya. It could not compete with Singapore's free-trade regime or Surabaya's industrial development. While Batavia's population steadily grew from 47 000 to 116 000 between 1815 and 1900, Surabaya's leapt from 24 500 to 147 000 because of better transport infrastructure and a stronger agriculture sector, particularly the sugar industry.
After the missionaries left, the remaining British community comprised mainly business people, part of a network stretching across the Orient, which derived from three major events in the middle years of the century. The already mentioned opening of the Chinese treaty ports in 1842 led to the development of British and foreign merchant communities particularly in Hong Kong, Shanghai and the other treaty ports. The Indian Mutiny of 1857 led to the EIC handing over control of its Indian empire to the British government, ending its centuries old grip on trade and seeing the birth of many of the great British commercial interests such as the Standard Chartered Bank of India and the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, which soon established branches in Batavia and Surabaya, beginning a long connection with the church. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 made trade with the Far East cheaper, quicker and safer. At the forefront of improved communications were British telegraph and shipping companies.
Some idea of the size of the British community in Batavia is the notice of meeting in 1884 for the BPC that was circulated to 45 men. The venue for the meeting was the Harmonie Club, the main social centre for European males, the British not yet possessing their own club premises. However, the community was not limited to Batavia, with Surabaya attracting British business interests as it became the major port and industrial centre in the NEI.
After the energy and vision of the mission chapel era, the following sixty-six years were to be the most disappointing in the church's history, with ministry mostly restricted to the small British community in Batavia and periods when there was no evidence of any Christian ministry. Coming onto the scene at the end of this era, Keen was better informed about it than the Mission Station era. Church archives also include some of the correspondence of the BPC. It is important to get some background about the changes that were taking place in East Asia in general and the NEI in particular because they determined the shape of the English-speaking community. For the wider historical context I found M C Ricklefs’s definitive History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1200 most useful.
1830 had ushered in a new era of prosperity and stability for the colonial regime in Java. In the same year that the costly Central Java War ended with the surrender of Prince Diponegoro, the government established the highly profitable cultuurstelsel (cultivation system). In practice it meant that every village had to pay a land tax in the form of export crops such as coffee, sugar and indigo. The beneficiaries were the Netherlands, colonial Dutch officials, the indigenous aristocratic elite and Chinese entrepreneurs. The poor farmers of Java subsidised the Dutch home economy, the conquest of the outer islands and even ironically the freeing of slaves in Surinam. Unable to concentrate on the production of rice, their staple crop, the farmers experienced a number of serious famines and epidemics. Finally the Dutch conscience was pricked and between 1862 and 1919 the system was gradually dismantled, crop by crop. Concurrently, the government monopoly was ended by the Agrarian Law of 1870, which opened up Java to private enterprise and allowed foreign nationals to take long-term leases of land. This heralded the era of the big plantation estates, many of which were either owned or managed by Britishers. By 1885 private exports were ten times those of the government. The number of European civilians in Java jumped from 17 285 in 1852 to 62 447 in 1900. Throughout this period Batavia grew steadily but undramatically, being outstripped by both Singapore and Surabaya. It could not compete with Singapore's free-trade regime or Surabaya's industrial development. While Batavia's population steadily grew from 47 000 to 116 000 between 1815 and 1900, Surabaya's leapt from 24 500 to 147 000 because of better transport infrastructure and a stronger agriculture sector, particularly the sugar industry.
After the missionaries left, the remaining British community comprised mainly business people, part of a network stretching across the Orient, which derived from three major events in the middle years of the century. The already mentioned opening of the Chinese treaty ports in 1842 led to the development of British and foreign merchant communities particularly in Hong Kong, Shanghai and the other treaty ports. The Indian Mutiny of 1857 led to the EIC handing over control of its Indian empire to the British government, ending its centuries old grip on trade and seeing the birth of many of the great British commercial interests such as the Standard Chartered Bank of India and the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, which soon established branches in Batavia and Surabaya, beginning a long connection with the church. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 made trade with the Far East cheaper, quicker and safer. At the forefront of improved communications were British telegraph and shipping companies.
Some idea of the size of the British community in Batavia is the notice of meeting in 1884 for the BPC that was circulated to 45 men. The venue for the meeting was the Harmonie Club, the main social centre for European males, the British not yet possessing their own club premises. However, the community was not limited to Batavia, with Surabaya attracting British business interests as it became the major port and industrial centre in the NEI.