Chulalongkorn

Chulalongkorn (ch`lälông`kôrn) or Rama V (rä`mä), 1853–1910, king of Siam (1868–1910). Educated in part by a British governess, Anna Leonowens, and an English tutor, he greatly advanced the Westernization of Siam (present-day Thailand) begun by his father, King Mongkut. He departed from tradition by traveling abroad—to Singapore, Java, and India in 1871 and to Europe in 1897. He abolished slavery, simplified court etiquette, initiated the practice of sending young Siamese abroad for training, set up schools, reorganized the administration of justice, laid the foundations of a sound financial policy, and built public works. He also was responsible for the centralization of Siamese administration that checked the independence of the hereditary provincial chieftains (1892). The total effect of Chulalongkorn's reforms and of the foreign policy he directed was to preserve Siam as an independent state at a time when the rest of SE Asia was falling subject to France and Great Britain.

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Chulalongkorn

 or Phrachunlachomklao or Rama V

Chulalongkorn

(credit: BBC Hulton Picture Library)

(born Sept. 30, 1853, Bangkok, Siam [Thailand]—died Oct. 23, 1910, Bangkok) King of Siam (r. 1868–1910). He succeeded to the throne at 15 but did not assume his duties until he was 20. He enacted ambitious reforms patterned on Western models, abolishing slavery, instituting the rule of impersonal law, and overhauling his antiquated administration. By persuading Western colonial powers that Siam was a modern state and playing their interests against one another, he kept Siam from being colonized for decades. However, in 1907 Siam was forced to give up its rights in Laos and western Cambodia to the French, and in 1909 it ceded four Malay states to Britain.