The Bangkok Times

I have used the Bangkok Times for my research on Siamese slavery to see how relevant issues were discussed in Siam at the turn of the century, and, more recently, on diplomatic relations of Siam in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to trace the situations in its neighboring Asian countries and colonial powers, as it was the only daily and long-lived newspaper that regularly/consistently provided coverage of social, political, economic, and cultural topics at that time. Since the Siamese elite paid close attention to articles carried in the Bangkok Times in order to know what was going on in the world and they thus often referred to the Bangkok Times in archival documents, it was also useful to crosscheck the information in archival source and evaluate it from a different angle. It would be wonderful if the whole series of the Bangkok Times is available in digitized form.

I am a professor of the Institute of Social Science of the University of Tokyo, and an economist specializing in Thailand as well as in East Asian countries. I have also been interested in a socio-economic history of Bangkok and Thailand from the reign of King Rama V to the Second World War.

Original copies of the Bangkok Times are one of the most important sources of primary information concerning Thailand’s politics, economy and society before the Second World War. Articles in the newspapers include not only political and diplomatic events in Thailand but also daily life of both Western people and Thai people. In addition to these articles, the summary of annual reports of the Sanitary Office well described the sanitary situation in those days, while the summary of annual activity reports of the Department of Royal Railways informed us the development of transportation in Thailand. A lot of information compiled in the newspapers are truly beneficial not only to scholars but also to all the people who are interested in a social history of Bangkok in pre-war period.

With no doubt, the Bangkok Times are the important cultural heritage and we have an obligation of preserving such a heritage for the next generation. I fully support the plan of the Siam Society of digitizing the original copies of the Bangkok Times.

The focus of my studies has been on Thailand’s transition to capitalism, changes in social structure, and the politics of organised labour. During periods of fieldwork and research over the past three decades I have drawn extensively on material contained in the Bangkok Times. Given the dearth of other resources, the reports, analyses, and records of events contained in local newspapers such as the Bangkok Times form vitally important sources of opinion and factual information. These sources are irreplaceable. They must be protected not only because of their use to scholars but also because of their broader national historical and cultural significance.

I used the Bangkok Times as an archival source in the research for my PhD dissertation, which will be published in a revised form this year as Gambling, the State and Society in Thailand, c.1800-1945. This study is a socio-legal history of gambling in the country and the Bangkok Times was invaluable in numerous ways. Besides providing details about events such as police raids on gambling dens and corruption scandals linked to government-run lotteries, this newspaper also ran summaries of relevant legislation, Supreme Court judicial decisions and, after 1932, the proceedings of the National Assembly. Furthermore, in addition to editorials and opinions pieces that reflected the concerns and prejudices of the Western community in Bangkok, it also carried translations of editorials from the Thai-language press so its readers might have a taste of public opinion on issues such as gambling. Overall, the Bangkok Times is a rich source of information and opinion for historians of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Siam/Thailand.

As a historian of the late 19th and early 20th century, I have depended upon the very few extant sources that open a window onto non-elite society in Siam. The Bangkok Times is one of those rare sources that not only is essential to my research but is also crucial to scholarship of my graduate students. By digitizing the Bangkok Times, the Siam Society will make a significant contribution to the preservation of Thailand’s history and, as importantly, enable the public in Thailand to access it.

The Bangkok Times was indispensable for my research on crime in Bangkok in the Fifth Reign. As the paper (23 July 1890) itself put it, its work included putting on record, not only the prominent occurrences which make up great matter, but also the regular habits and doings of everyday life from which the characteristics and peculiarities of a place are evolved. The paper captures the cosmopolitanism of Bangkok, from the presence of foreign Consuls and courts, houses, shopping and dining establishments; the British, French and German businessmen and their families, the British senior officers of the Siamese police, their Sikh and local subalterns in the district police stations, the gharry drivers, domestic staff, Chinese pawnbrokers and rice millers under foreign protection, and in the midst of all this, the ordinary Siamese who had to make sense of it all in their quotidian existence. One can hear the cacophony of voices from the newspaper reports, speaking different languages, but all part of the fabric of the dynamic and modernising society of the time.