ABSTRACT

Modern Malaysia was established in 1963 following a drawn-out struggle against British interests which had occupied territory on Penang and Singapore and the Straits of Malacca in 1786, 1819 and 1824 respectively. In 1867 these outposts came under the control of the British Colonial Office and were governed as a Crown Colony. Although Britain did not directly colonise the Malay States, which remained legally autonomous, it imposed effective administrative control over Malaya and the Borneo territories from the late 1870s until the Japanese occupation in 1942.