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Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles was born in 1781 on board the ship Ann, off the coast of Port Morant, Jamaica, to Captain Benjamin Raffles and Anne Raffles (nee Lyde). Raffles was a British statesman, Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies (1811-1816), and Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen (1818-1824). He was the founder of modern Singapore and the Straits Settlements. Raffles was heavily involved in the capture of the Indonesian island of Java from the Dutch during the Napoleonic Wars. He wrote 'The History of Java'.

He was elected a member of the Linnaean Society on 5th February 1825. He was a founder and first president of the Zoological Society of London and the London Zoo.

Raffles died at Highwood House in Mill Hill, north London, on 5th July 1826, of apoplexy. He was survived by his second wife Sophia Hull and daughter Ella.