North Borneo Chartered Company

Area of the Chartered Company's Property

Board of directors

W. C. Cowie, Managing Director with the Sultan of Sulu

The North Borneo Chartered Company or British North Borneo Company was a chartered company assigned to administer North Borneo (today's Sabah in Malaysia) in August 1881. North Borneo became a protectorate of the British Empire with internal affairs administered by the company until 1946 when it became the colony of British North Borneo. The main motto was Pergo et Perago (Latin), which means "I undertake and I achieve". The first chairman of the company was Alfred Dent.

In 1882, the North Borneo Chartered Company established a settlement on Pulau Gaya, one year after the Chartered Company was given the mandate to rule Sabah. However, in 1897, this settlement was burnt to the ground during the raid led by Mat Salleh, a Sabah tribal Chief and it was never re-established. This company is also known as 'Syarikat Borneo Utara British' and was criticised by the locals for the taxes it collected.

Establishing law and order as well as recruiting Sikh policeman from North India was one of the early roles the NBCC initiated, as well as expanding trade, a system of government, courts to enforce laws and punishment and building both a railway line from Jesselton to Tenom and encouraging the harvesting and barter trade of both local agriculture produce and crops, as well as establishment of plantations.

Presidents of the Company

Head of the Company was the chairman of the board of Directors, since 1910 officially named as President:

Chairmen of the British North Borneo Chartered Company
1882 - 1893	Sir Rutherford Alcock
1893 - 1903	Richard Biddulph Martin
1903 - 1909	Sir Charles James Jessel
1909 - 14.09.1910	William Clarke Cowie
Presidents of the British North Borneo Chartered Company
1910 - 1926	Sir Joseph West Ridgeway
3.02.1926 - 15.07.1946	Sir Neill Malcolm

See also

• Chartered companies
• North Borneo
• Governor of North Borneo

Sources

• Owen Rutter: British North Borneo - An Account of its History, Resources and Native Tribes, Constable & Company Ltd, London, 1922
• Regina Lim: Federal-state relations in Sabah, Malaysia: the Berjaya administration 1976-85, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008, ISBN 978-981-230-811-5
• W. H. Treacher: British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan and North Borneo, Singapore, Government print department, 1891
• K. G. Tregonning: A History Of Modern Sabah (North Borneo 1881-1963), 2. Ausgabe, University of Malaya Press, Kuala Lumpur, 1965, Reprint 1967

Weblinks

• Original Text of the British Nord Borneo Company Charter
• William Clarke Cowie in the German Wikipedia
• Sir Charles James Jessel in the German Wikipedia
• Alfred Dent in the German Wikipedia