Sir Richard Olof Winstedt

Sir Richard Olof Winstedt (born Aug. 2, 1878, Oxford—died June 2, 1966, London) was the director of education in British Malaya who shaped Malay education and produced an extensive body of writings on Malaya.

Winstedt first went to Malaya in 1902. As an administrative officer posted to rural districts in Perak and Negeri Sembilan, he immersed himself (with several notable Malay amanuenses) in the study of the language, beliefs, customs, and history of the Malays. His first paper on Malay folklore was published in 1907, and the first edition of his Malay Grammar in 1913. As a result of his special interests, Winstedt was made assistant director of education for the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States, with special responsibility for vernacular (Malay) education. He was director of education from 1924 to 1931.

Though he was responsible for introducing into Malay schools a greater proportion of indigenous materials, vernacular education remained at the most elementary level. Winstedt was accused by some of using education to create a quiescent colonial population rather than to advance the true interests of the Malays in what was fast becoming a multiracial and highly westernized society.

Despite a busy official life, Winstedt was the author of a large series of monographs and articles on the history and culture of Malaya. During the 1930s he wrote histories of several Malay states and in 1935 a general history of the peninsula. He also published a History of Classical Malay Literature (1940), a work on Malay magic, and several dictionaries. After his retirement in 1935, he returned to England, was knighted (1935), and from 1937 to 1946 was reader in Malay at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1945.