Sir Edward Belcher (1799-1877) was a British naval officer and explorer. He captained the H.M.S. Samarang, which surveyed the East Indies and arrived in Singapore on 19 June 1843. The H.M.S. Samarang was instructed to survey off-lying islands of the Eastern Archipelago, as part of the British government’s decision to survey the approaches to ports in the five Chinese cities laid open by the 1842 Treaty of Nanking.
