Nicholas Tarling (1931–2017)

As this issue of JMBRAS was nearly ready to go to press, news arrived of the death of Professor Nicholas Tarling. A Life Member of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Nick devoted his life to the study of Asia, and particularly of Southeast Asia. He worked in the field of diplomatic history and international relations, and his publications drew on exhaustive research in Britain’s National Archives. He was also one of the unsung people who invest time reviewing other peoples’ manuscripts, writing reviews that were astute, critical when they needed to be, but also generous and encouraging. In retirement, he announced that his savings were more than sufficient for his needs, and sponsored a number of conferences and publications from his personal funds.

It is difficult to sum up the career of a scholar who published some 50 books and a large number of articles. One way of doing that might be to invoke his passion for opera. He was an accomplished performer of light opera, and in one of his last books, Orientalism and the Operatic World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), he described himself “an historian for whom Asian history is a vocation and opera an avocation”, and set out to juxtapose these interests. Another way of capturing the man might be to draw on a personal recollection. Nick regularly attended conferences of the International Association of Historians of Asia. During the business meetings that concluded each conference, he routinely took the stage to read a composition he had drafted about events during the conference. What he called his ‘funny pieces’ captured the moment brilliantly, and as was characteristic of the man, in a way that was witty, sharply observed, and kind.