One of the precious gifts of the Internet is the ability that it provides to retrace one’s steps in life by researching documents, memoirs and blogs about times and places.
Everywhere that I have worked internationally as an Economic Consultant, I have also tucked away in my memory local stories – and I can now unearth most of these and give them colour.
In 1974, I was a member of a consulting team that produced the ‘North Perak Regional Planning and Development Study’, and I spent 6 months in Ipoh preparing the recommendations on industrial development.
The story that I garnered there was the tale of the Demise of the British Resident of Perak, J.W.W. Birch in 1875. My understanding was that he met an essentially unhygienic and un-heroic end - speared while smoking a cheroot, toileting over the Perak River.
I believed that, as was so often reported in this era; ‘Queen Victoria was not amused’.
I present a more accurate and extensive account below. [There is excellent additional reading at the Sejarah Melayu Library online, developed by Sabri Zain found at: http://www.sabrizain.org/malaya/library/index.htm]
THE BRITISH IN PERAK
The British interest in disputing and maintaining maritime control over the Straits of Malacca from British India led to intervention in Peninsula Malaya. In the 19th century, the Sultanate of Perak was relatively weak and it was only British intervention in 1820 that prevented Siam (Thailand) from annexing it.
This led on to the annexation of the Straits Settlement in 1826, as territories controlled by the British East India Company. The Straits Settlements consisted of the individual settlements of Malacca, Penang (also known as Prince of Wales Island), and Singapore.
The establishment of the Straits Settlements followed the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, by which the Malay archipelago was divided into a British zone in the north and a Dutch zone in the south. This gave the British undisputed control of Singapore. The Straits Settlements capital was moved from Penang to Singapore in 1832.
The Straits Settlements came under direct British control as a Crown Colony on 1 April 1867 and this in turn involved the British Government in the politics of the neighbouring Malay Sultanates.
It appears that the British were initially reluctant to establish a colonial presence in inland Malaya. However, increasing development of the tin mines of Perak brought an influx of Chinese immigrants, who formed rival clan groups allied with Malay chiefs and local gangsters, battling to control the mines. The Perak sultanate, involved in a protracted succession struggle, was unable to maintain order.
At the behest of English and Chinese merchants, the unreliable and duplicitous Raja Muda Abdullah was persuaded to approach Governor Sir Andrew Clarke to place Perak under British protection, requesting from the British ‘a man of sufficient abilities to show (him) a good system of government.’ The British then confirmed their support for Abdullah’s succession.
ROLE & DEATH OF J.W.W.BIRCH
The subsequent Pangkor Treaty required that the new Sultan should accept a British Resident, who would control all administrative issues ‘other than those pertaining to religion or Malay custom’.
James Wheeler Woodford Birch, commonly known as J. W. W. Birch (3 April 1826 - 2 November 1875) was the first British Resident in Perak, which became a British Protectorate. Birch was killed on 2 November 1875 at Pasir Panjang on the Perak River.
Sir Frank Swettenham who was a subsequent Governor, describes the event in the following terms in his ‘Malay Sketches’ (1895):
‘Meanwhile, Mr Birch had handed to his interpreter some more proclamations (setting out the role of the Resident) to replace those removed, and, after giving directions to prepare his breakfast, went to the China-man’s bath-house to bathe, leaving a Sikh orderly at the door with a loaded revolver.
This bath house was of the type common in Perak, two large logs floating in the stream, fastened together by cross-pieces of wood, and on them built a small house with mat sides about five feet high, and a roof closing on the sides but leaving open triangular spaces at front and back. The structure is so moored that it floats parallel to the bank, and a person even standing up inside it cannot see what is taking place on the shoreclose by.
The interpreter disposed of, Pandak Indut cried out, “Here is Mr Birch in the bath house, come let us kill him”, and followed by three or four others shouting amok, amok, they leapt on the floating timbers and thrust their spears through the open space in front of the house.
At that time, the men in the boats could see Mr Birch’s head above the mat wall – it disappeared without any sound from him. A moment after he came to the surface of the water astern of the house. Some of the murderers were already waiting there, and one of them, a man called Siputum, slashed the Resident over the head with a sword.
He sank and was not seen again.’
ASSESSMENT
The general assessment is that Birch was assassinated because of his disrespect for local customs and traditions, and his poor diplomacy with local Malay chiefs. He was regarded as arrogant - and disrespectful of even the Sultan. Another interpretation is that the outlawing of slavery was the main reason why Birch was assassinated.
The direct instigator of the assassination, Dato Maharaja Lela apparently drew income from a range of corrupt practices, including capturing and selling the local indigenous people, the Orang Asli, as slaves.
Birch was recorded as saying: "it concerns us little what were the customs of the country nor do I think they are worthy of any consideration".
With respect to Dato Maharaja Lela, an article in the New Straits Times (7 June 1993) pays tribute to him as ‘the famed Malay warrior who stood up to the excessive demands of the British’.
In the aftermath of the assassination, there was a short-lived Perak War in 1867. Sultan Abdullah was deposed and sent to exile in Seychelles. Dato Maharaja Lela and others involved in the death of Birch were hanged. The new resident, Sir Hugh Low, was well versed in the Malay language and customs, and proved to be a more capable administrator. He also introduced the first rubber trees to Malaya.
Still standing in front of the Ipoh State Mosque, is the Birch Memorial unveiled in 1909. This is a square clock tower comprising a portrait bust and four panels illustrating the growth of civilisation.
At the corners of the belfry, mounted on pedestals, are terracotta figures, representing the four "Virtues of British Administration":
• Loyalty, with sword and shield
• Justice, blind and carrying a sword and a pair of scales
• Patience, unarmed, and
• Fortitude, with a calm face and bearing a spear (some irony here).
On a more personal note, Birch was described by R.O. Windstedt and R. J. Wilkinson in The History of Perak as "a lonely pathetic figure of an Englishman with narrow rigid ideas as his daily companions".
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