Reginald Le May
Reginald Le May [or le May] (6 Jan. 1885, Wadhurst, Sussex — 22 Jan. 1972, Uckfield, Sussex) was a British consular officer and adviser to the Siamese government based in Siam (modern Thailand) from 1908 to 1932, a collector of coins, stamps and Siamese Art fluent in the Thai language, and a specialist in Siamese Buddhist Art History who promoted Siamese art in Europe and the US after being awarded a PhD at Cambridge University in 1934.
After joining the Far Eastern Consular Service under the Foreign Office, he served in Siam starting in 1908, was appointed Vice-Consul in Chiang Mai (1915−1917), Bangkok (1917−1920), Saigon (1920−1922). From 1922, he was acting economic adviser to the Siamese Ministry of Commerce and Transport, and from 1926 until 1932 to Prince Purachatra Jayakara บุรฉัตรไชยากร (1881−1936), a son of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V the Great) often called ‘the Father of the Thai radio’ and the ‘Father of the Thai railways’. In that capacity, and after having visited extensively Northern Siam he also toured Burma, Northern India and British Malaya on behalf of the Ministry.
His interest in Siamese art brought him close to Prince Damrong Rajanubhab, who was developing at the time the Siamese Archaeological Service and the Museum of Bangkok, inaugurated in October 1926. He also knew personally George Coedès and Victor Goloubew from EFEO. As for his connection with the Siam Society, his obituary recalled that
In 1928, Reginald Le May was one of the leading spirits behind the Society’s appeal for funds to build a home of its own. It is said that it was he who approached Mr. A.E. Nana, the business magnate, who, in addition to a donation , thereupon agreed to present the Society with the three rai plot of land on Soi Asoke. And it was apparently also Le May who obtained the free services of Mr. Healey, a leading architect in Bangkok at that time, to design the Hall of the Society which has been in use to this day. Reginald Le May’s affection for this country and the Thai people was hard to match. Indeed, to the last days of his life, he called Siam “the country of my adoption.”
After returning to Europe in 1933 via Cambodia and Annam, and presenting his doctoral thesis at Cambridge in 1938, he gave numerous lectures on Buddhist art at London University, the Royal Asiatic and the Royal Central Asian Societies in London, the EFEO and Musée Guimet in Paris, and the 1938 International Congress of Orientalists in Brussels. (JSS 60, 1972, p 395 – 6)
In 1937, Le May’s collection of Thai art was displayed at an exhibition in Cambridge, then the following year in Oxford and London, the latter one viewed by Queen Mary in person. Later, in 1954, he published what he saw as his magnus opus, The Culture of South-East Asia, with an Indian edition dedicated to Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru. He also compiled his memories of his years in Southeast Asia in eleven albums containing numerous original photographs which he himself took during his travels, letters, newspaper cuttings, etc., now held at the London British Library (MSS Eur C275/1 – 11).
Publications
- The Standard Catalogue of Thai Stamps, Bangkok, Siam Philatelic Society, 1920 .
- An Asian Arcady: The Land and Peoples of Northern Siam, Cambridge, W. Heffer, 1926; Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1927, 273 p; repr. Bangkok, White Lotus Books, 1999, 362 p. ISBN 9789748434704.
- [translation from TH edition by Manunet Banhan, Phya] Siamese Tales Old and New. The Four Riddles and Other Stories, translated by Reginald le May, with some Reflections on the Tales, London, Noël Douglas, 1930.
- The Coinage of Siam, The Siam Society, Bangkok, 1932.
- A Concise History of Buddhist Art in Siam [published version of “Buddhist History in Siam”, PhD. thesis], Cambridge University Press, 1938; repr. Cambridge University Press, 2013, 274 p., ISBN 9781107619463; repr. as A Concise History of Buddhist Art in Siam; Buddhist Art
in South-East Asia. The Indian Influence of Buddhist Art in Siam. Aryan Books International, New Delhi, 2004, 163 p. - The Culture of South-East Asia, London, Allen & Unwin, 1954; reprint 1961, 1963, 2013.