Mongkut Mongkut Phra Bat Somdet Phra Poramenthra Maha Mongkut Phra Chom Klao Chao Yu Hua (), or Rama IV, known in English-speaking countries as King Mongkut (18 October 18041 October 1868), was the fourth monarch of Siam (Thailand) under the House of Chakri, ruling from 1851 to 1868. Outside Thailand, he is best known as the king in the 1951 musical and 1956 film "The King and I", based on the 1946 film "Anna and the King of Siam"in turn based on a 1944 novel by an American missionary about Anna Leonowens' years at his court, from 1862 to 1867. During
Anna Leonowens enterprise was not a financial success, it established her reputation as an educator. In 1862, Leonowens accepted an offer made by the consul in Singapore, Tan Kim Ching, to teach the wives and children of Mongkut, King of Siam. The king wished to give his 39 wives and concubines and 82 children a modern Western education on scientific secular lines, which earlier missionaries' wives had not provided. Leonowens sent her daughter Avis to school in England, and took her son Louis with her to Bangkok. She succeeded Dan Beach Bradley, an American missionary, as teacher to the Siamese court. Leonowens