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  Out in the Midday Sun

  The British in Malay 1880-1960

  Margaret Shennan

  Monsoon Books

  Singapore

  Published in 2015

  by Monsoon Books Pte Ltd

  150 Ochard Road #07-02, Singapore 238841

  www.monsoonbooks.com.sg

  ISBN (paperback): 978-981-4625-31-9

  ISBN (ebook): 978-981-4625-32-6

  First published in 2000 by John Murray (Publishers), Ltd.

  Copyright©Margaret Shennan, 2000

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover design by Cover Kitchen.

  Frontcover studio portrait of Edwin A. Brown, photographed in Singapore in 1903, courtesy Estate of Edwin A. Brown.

  Out in the Midday Sun © Margaret Shennan. All Rights Reserved, except where otherwise noted.

  Contents

  Illustrations

  Citations

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  The Building of British Malaya 1880-1920

  1. The Meeting of Two Worlds

  2. Pioneers and Progress

  3. Private Lives, Public Values

  4. Pyrotechnics in Penang

  5. Mutiny!

  Golden Years 1920-1940

  6. Halcyon Days

  7. Pyramids of Power

  8. Officials and Unofficials

  9. The Rubber Men

  10. The Mem, the Missee and the Tuan Kechil

  The Long Retreat 1940-1960

  11. The Unprepared Society

  12. Terrible Forfeits

  13. False Dawn

  14. The Battle for Hearts and Minds

  15. A Campaign of Cards

  16. An Inexcusable Betrayal

  Photographs

  17. Singapore Cricket Club

  18. Penang Swimming Club

  19. Guthrie & Co.

  20. Lingui tin mine, Johore

  21. Swettenham Wharf, Penang

  22. Lingui tin mine bungalow

  23. Adam Park, Singapore

  24. Government House, Singapore

  25. The visit of the Duke of Gloucester

  26. Singapore Swimming Club, Tanjong Rhu

  27. The King’s Birthday Parade, 1931

  28. Mems taking afternoon tea

  29. Fancydress balls

  30. Wedding of Alex and Dorothy Cullen

  31. Tengkil tin mine, South Johore

  32. Empire Day, 1937

  33. Stengahs at sundown

  34. Guy Hutchinson

  35. Leslie Froggat

  36. J.R.P. Soper

  37. Tom Kitching

  38. A prison cell in Changi camp

  39. Selerang Barracks, Changi

  40. Censored cards home

  41. Operation ‘Gustavus I’

  42. New Village, Jelebu, Negri Sembilan

  43. General Templer and the Home Guard

  44. British Malayans in the Emergency

  45. A table of Tunkus and prominent Malays in Seremban, 1950

  46. The Baling Talks, 1955

  47. Boris Hembry and Sir Henry Gurney

  48. Guy Madoc

  Postscript

  Glossary

  Bibliography

  Illustrations

  The author and publisher would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce illustrations: Plates 1, 2 and 3, Twentieth Century Impressions of British Malaya, 1908, pp.582, 585, 671; 4, 6, 15, 17, 18 and 28, J. A. S. Edington; 5, Norman Price; 7, 8, 10, 11 and 14, Gordon Snell; 9, Christopher Cannell; 13, 20 and 23, Ms Ray Forsyth; 21, Brian and Colin Kitching; 22, D. J. Anderson; 24, Derick Cullen; 25 and 30, family of John Davis; 26 and 29, H. P. Bryson Collection; 27, Miles Templer; 31, John Hembry; 32, Mrs Fenella Davis. Plates 12, 16 and 19 are taken from the author’s collection.

  Citations

  The chapter endnotes for this book may be found online at: www.monsoonbooks.com.sg/citations/Out-in-the-Midday-Sun

  Acknowledgements

  In writing this book I have relied on the generous advice, information and goodwill of many people whose help I wish to acknowledge. In the first instance, my warmest thanks go to Ms Terry Barringer, librarian of the Royal Commonwealth Society Collection at Cambridge University, who gave me invaluable guidance and assistance, particularly on my numerous working visits to the library. I also thank Mr Lewis Hill, Director of the Centre for South-East Asian Studies at the University of Hull, Mr Michael Hughes at Rhodes House Library, Oxford, and the staff of the Imperial War Museum Archives, London, including Mr Peter Kent at the Photograph Archive. I am grateful to the staff and the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King’s College, London, for permission to quote from the Vlieland papers; to Dr Gareth Griffiths for advice and for permission to quote from the resources of the Oral History Archive of the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, Bristol, archivist Mary Ingoldby. In addition, I thank the Syndics of Cambridge University Library for their permission to publish material from the Royal Commonwealth Society’s collections; and the staff at Lancaster City Library and Lancashire County Services, Lancaster University Library and the Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool, for their assistance.

  A number of people offered me private family papers, manuscripts and letters, and I am most grateful to them for providing hitherto unpublished material. In particular, my heartfelt thanks go to Ray Forsyth and John Soper for allowing me to make significant use of the unpublished works of their father, Mr J. R. P. Soper. I am similarly indebted to M. J. Gent, OBE, for offering me the unqualified use of Marian Gent’s manuscript; to Derick Cullen for use of his family collection of letters and other papers; to Jack warm of Adelaide for use of his father’s ‘Changi Diary’; also to Susan Tanner for lending me the copy of Captain Henry Malet’s ‘War Diary’ and a rare commemorative booklet on the Convent School, Cameron Highlands; to Norman Price for allowing me to use his mother’s ‘Malayan Memories’ and other family papers; and to both Colin and Brian Kitching for permission to quote from their father’s work in the Royal Commonwealth Society Collection, and for kindly presenting me with a copy of the diary of Tom Kitching, Life and Death in Changi, published by Brian Kitching, while letting me quote freely from the text. I am grateful also to Geoffrey Barnes for permitting me to quote from his autobiography, Mostly Memories; similarly to Jonathan Sim with regard to Katharine Sim’s book, Malayan Landscape, and to Pelanduk Publications regarding Dato Mubin Sheppard’s biography of Tunku Abdul Rahman. I thank Suzanne, Duchess of St Albans, for clarifying some personal details and also for permission to quote from her autobiography, The Mimosa and the Mango (now part of a condensed version of her three-volume memoirs, Mangoes and Mimosa, published by Virago). Mary Elder was kind enough to lend me a copy of God’s Little Acre with its invaluable insight into the Emergency, and I thank John Edington for providing me with numerous personal items and for his constant advice and willingness to answer a stream of questions.

  Many former residents of Malaysia offered photographs from their personal collections, with permission to publish them as illustrations, together with other memorabilia from the colonial period, and I thank them sincerely and regret that only a proportion could be incorporated in the book. I should like to record my thanks to Derek J. Anderson for permission to reproduce a drawing of Changi Gaol, formerly in
the possession of his grandfather, Alexander Godfrey Donn, a prisoner-of-war in Singapore; Douglas Benton for a rare photograph of Guy Hutchinson; and Gordon Snell for full use of his family albums. Others to whom I owe thanks are listed in the acknowledgements to the illustrations.

  Several people gave me valuable advice in the early stages of the project, in particular, A. J. S. Anderson of the Scottish Malaysian Association, Kenneth Barnes, Peggie Robertson, John Gullick, Kay Larsson and Professor Mary Turnbull. I am grateful to John Loch for putting me in touch with John Davis of Force 136. I also received valuable information in telephone and face-to-face conversations with ex-Malayans, and in letters and newspaper cuttings. In conclusion, I record my thanks to the Revd Derek Allton, John Anderson. Ron Armstrong, Ken Barnes, the late Colonel Christopher Barrett, Jette Barrett, Roger Barrett, Dermot Barton, QBE, Margaret Barton, Dr Erina Batt, Gordon D. Brown, Christina Browne, Christopher Cannell, Dr D. R. Clementi, Derick Cullen, John Davis, CBE, DSO, Anne Douglas, Robert W Duffton, Deirdre Edington, John A. S.Edington, Mary L. Elder, Ray Forsyth, Sir Leslie Froggatt, James Gilbert, D. M. Gold, Dulcie Gray, CBE, Ian Harness, Maureen Heath, Michael ]. Henebrey, Valerie Henebrey, Brian Hunt, Tom Kerr, Donald Macpherson, Margot Massie, John Menneer, G. T. M. de M.Morgan, MC, OBE, Edward Morris, Peter Morris, Harold Naysmith, Mrs Jane O’Donovan, Dr Michael Pallister, J. R. Pippet, Norman Price, Anthony Pybus, Sheila Rawdiffe, Edward R. Read, Alastair Reid, James Robertson, MBE, Professor Peter Rowe, Elizabeth Scott, Catherine Small, Gordon Snell, Brian Stewart, CMG, Susan Tanner, Miles Templer, William W Vowler, Christopher Watkins, E. James Winchester, Simon Wright and Alexander Wylde. If there are any inadvertent omissions, I offer my sincere apologies.

  Margaret Shennan

  Introduction

  In the past century the British appear to have been driven by a compulsion to put into words their experiences and perceptions of life in the East. Malaya, in particular, has stimulated a mass of literature, both fiction and non-fiction. Many British expatriates wrote letters home or kept a diary to be turned later into a period memoir, with descriptions of events, people, the beauty of the tropical scenery, the trials and surprises of the climate. Travellers kept accounts of their journeys; journalists and writers found inspiration in Malaya’s exotic setting, its humdrum and quixotic characters, or the tragedies of a benign but flawed colonial regime. If the Raj boasts Rudyard Kipling, E. M. Forster and Paul Scott, Malaya has, among others, Joseph Conrad and Henry Fauconnier, Somerset Maugham, Anthony Burgess, Paul Theroux, J. G. Farrell, Neville Shute, Alan Sillitoe and Leslie Thomas. Alongside these are some less well-known raconteurs and observers: Isabella Bird and Emily Innes – both underestimated, despite the sharp eye for detail of the one and the laconic humour of the other; governors Frank Swettenham and Hugh Clifford, and the official J. T. Thomson, who like Swettenham was a gifted artist and whose paintings of Malayan scenes have a directness akin to Lowry’s pictures of industrial England. And more recently, in the twentieth century, civil servants such as Richard Winstedt, R. J. Wilkinson, Victor Purcell and J. M. Gullick have demonstrated their expert knowledge in contributions to academic scholarship.

  Malaya, as the British knew it, embraced the Malay peninsula, the south-easterly appendage of Burma and Thailand, and its adjacent islands, including Penang and Singapore. Three-quarters or more of this equatorial country was covered by tropical rainforest, thanks to temperatures in the range of 70 to 90°F, high humidity and an average annual rainfall of 100 inches. The landscape is dominated by a core of parallel jungle-covered mountain ranges, peaking at over 7,000 feet, which serve as the watershed of a valuable river system. In the centre and north, hilly outcrops of limestone support stunted vegetation, scrub and secondary forest clothe the lower slopes, and swamps line the western coast.

  In the century and a half of British involvement, the country was made up of a dozen political units and was peopled not only by Malays but by large immigrant communities from China, India and Indonesia. In the post-colonial period, since 1957, social, economic and political development has been rapid, and with the exception of Singapore – now an independent state – what was once Malaya is the western part of a larger Federation of Malaysia. There is a historical logic to this union, for in cultural terms the Malay peninsula has long been a part of the Malaysian archipelago, which lay between the two historic spheres of influence in the East: the Indian subcontinent and the Buddhist lands bordering the South China Sea. Mass immigration from these two regions into Malaya during the British period of influence was to build a new, multiracial, multicultural country with a complex administrative system, consisting of a Crown Colony and two protectorates. This system ended with the collapse of British power in 1941–2 and the Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945. After the return of the British in 1945 a temporary military administration was instituted. On the restoration of civil government in 1946, the colony of Singapore became politically separate from the rest of Malaya, under both the ill-starred Malayan Union (1946–8) and the Federation of Malaya. The island was then briefly (1963–5) merged in the Malaysian Federation which continues to this day.

  The Malay people had migrated southward into the peninsula from the interior of Asia in around 2000 bc. Earlier, in prehistoric times, an ethnically distinct people had followed the same route. Some of these aboriginal tribes moved on to the Indonesian islands and as far as Australasia, but those who settled in the mountainous rainforests of the Malay peninsula would be known by the Malays as orang asli – ‘the original people’. The Malays themselves spread across the whole Malaysian archipelago to establish, after several centuries, a unifying Melayu civilization based on Sumatra. They were followed from the third to the fourteenth centuries by successive waves of migrants: Greeks, Arabs, Persians, possibly Egyptians and Phoenicians, and more significantly Indians, who brought a thousand years of Hindu culture to the peninsula and to the island of Tumasik (known later as Singapore). All these voyagers reached Malaya by sailing with the prevailing monsoon winds – north-easterlies sweeping westward from China or south-westerlies bringing traders from India. Over the centuries the balance of power in South-East Asia fluctuated, but the several small states of the Malay peninsula were generally reduced to vassal states by large and dominant empires based in Siam (present-day Thailand), Sumatra or Java. After Tumasik had been sacked by Siamese imperial forces at the end of the fourteenth century, its ruler, Paramesvara, escaped to a fishing village on the west coast of the peninsula, creating a new Malay state of Malacca.

  In the fifteenth century Malacca’s position at the crossroads of the Asian trade routes made it a prominent trading power, an entrepôt for the spices of the Moluccas and Banda islands, fine Indian textiles and Chinese silks and porcelain. In addition, this citystate forged a distinct Malay tradition, based on the Islamic faith, a literary cultural identity and a hierarchical political system with officers of state presided over by the Sultan, a structure adopted later by emergent states elsewhere in the peninsula. In 1500, on the eve of European intrusion into the Far East, Malacca led the Malay world, its control extending to the states of Pahang, Trengganu, Kedah and Johore.

  In the past the European historical tradition tended to underplay the achievements of Asian states and cultures like Malacca. Interest focused on the wealth of the East, the precious metals and stones, silks, ‘spices’ (aromatic condiments, medicines, dyes, perfumes and cosmetics) and the exotic products of tropical seas and forests, such as coral, pearls and sandalwood. This accounts for the lure of mysterious countries such as Cathay (China), Cipangu (Japan) and the region east of India dubbed the Golden Chersonese, identified with the Malay peninsula. Also, by emphasizing European technological superiority – the seizure of Malacca by the Portuguese in 1511 and by the Dutch in 1641 – other aspects of the evolving Malay world were overlooked. The modern sultanate of Johore, for instance, was formed by members of the Malacca royal house, escaping from the Portuguese to the southern end of the peninsula. Later the
ir seat of power was moved to the Riau-Linggi archipelago, to the south of Singapore Island, leaving Johore in the hands of the Sultan’s minister or temenggong.

  By the middle of the seventeenth century, Malacca had lost its earlier economic vitality. The Dutch whose power base was further south in the Malaysian archipelago, found it difficult to enforce their monopoly over the export of tin from Malay states such as Perak. In the developing power vacuum, the Bugis people of Celebes – a race of skilled sailors, warriors and traders – began to settle along the coast of the Malacca Straits, into Johore’s territories in the Riau islands and the region between Perak and Malacca, which in 1745 became the separate state of Selangor under a Bugis sultan.

  Economic opportunity also attracted other waves of immigrants to Malayan shores at this time: Arabs and Indians to Kedah; Chinese to the centres of mining and agriculture in the eastern states of Trengganu and Kelantan, Perak in the north and Riau; and the Minangkabau people of Sumatra to a cluster of small states lying between Malacca and Selangor, of which Sungei Ujong was the most prominent (and from which Negri Sembilan later emerged). Both Dutch and Bugis influence diminished in the eighteenth century, amid protracted civil war, political fragmentation and piracy on the high seas. Siam re-exerted its overlordship of the northern Malay states. British traders such as Francis Light, based in India, saw new opportunities for developing trade with China by utilizing the tin and spices of the Malay peninsula.

  British trading power was established in India by the mid-eighteenth century, but the East India Company had no base in the Far East. Light, who was on amicable terms with the Malay Sultan of Kedah, coveted the small island of Penang, which guarded the northern entrance to the Malacca Straits. In 1786 he acquired it from the Sultan for an annual payment of $6,000 Spanish dollars and took possession on behalf of the Company. This takeover marked the beginning of British power in the Malay archipelago. The extension of British control was a gradual process, and continued to 1914. In 1795 the British captured Malacca from the Dutch (though it was temporarily returned in 1818). Then, in 1800, the East India Company secured from the Sultan of Kedah territory on the Malay mainland facing Penang. It was named Province Wellesley, after the Governor-General of India.