Modern Singapore was founded in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles, with a great deal of help from Major William Farquhar. Before establishing Singapore, Raffles was the Lieutenant Governor of Java from 1811 till 1815. In 1818 he was appointed to Bencoolen. Realising how the Dutch were monopolising trade in the Malay Archipelago, he was convinced that the British needed a new trading colony to counter Dutch trading power. Months of research brought him to Singapore, an island at the tip of the Malay Peninsula. The island was ruled by a "temenggung".