[ { "id": 206489, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 37, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "RAJA JAMES BROOKE AND SARAWAK\n\n31\n\nslavery. One of the Brunei princes, Raja Muda Hasim, had shown a rather more friendly attitude toward European traders out of Singapore than had the pirate chiefs. Brooke was commissioned to make contact with Hasim and see what he could do to make English ships welcome in the rivers of Borneo. Brooke was given a letter from Governor Bonham addressed to the Sultan of Brunei, Omar Ali Saifuddin.\n\nSarawak in those days was the southernmost part of the Brunei sultanate, little more than the Malay village of Kuching and the Sarawak River. The local Malay chiefs had for some time been in rebellion against the extortionary rule of the Brunei governor, and Raja Muda Hasim had been sent to suppress the rebellion but without much success.\n\nIt was in Sarawak that Brooke, on the 15th August 1839, met Hasim and his brother Bedruddin who impressed him with their “overawing and stately demeanour”, and their above average intelligence and political acumen. They were not at all the ordinary dissipated Malay chiefs that proliferated in the environs of the Brunei court. Brooke was made welcome and carried on conversations about Malay politics and trade. He then continued his voyage to Celebes and again returned to Kuching in the summer of 1840.\n\nWithout going into the details of Malay intrigue and procrastination that surrounded a most fascinating episode of British colonial history, suffice it to say that within a year Brooke had successively: convinced himself that it was worthwhile attempting to settle the rebellion in a just and fair way; had thrown the considerable weight and prestige of his expedition behind Hasim; had negotiated an end to the rebellion, which characteristically included a fair and humane amnesty for the rebellious chiefs; and had accepted in the bargain the governorship of Sarawak. Brooke wrote a lively account of the proceedings for his journal entry,2\n\nUnder the guns of Royalist, and with a small body of men to protect me personally, and the great majority of all classes with me, it is not surprising that the negotiation proceeded rapidly to a favourable issue. The document was quickly drawn up, sealed, signed, and delivered; and on the 24th of\n\n2 R. Munday, Narrative of Events in Borneo and Celebes from the Journals of James Brooke, Esq. (John Murray, London, 1848), Vol. I, p. 271.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206491, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 39, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "RAJA JAMES BROOKE AND SARAWAK\n\nNo one dissented, whereupon\n\n33\n\nMuda Hassim then drew forth his sabre, and raising it, proclaimed in a loud voice, that any one who contested the Sultan's appointment, his head should be split in two. On which ten of his brothers drew their krisses and flourished them\n\n+\n\nAs we have seen James Brooke acquired Sarawak as a private individual; but there is little question but that elements within the Brunei court, centered upon Hasim and Bedruddin, which came to be known as the \"English party\" wished to bring the British into an alliance with them to further their own political ends, and they saw Brooke as an agency by means of which this goal might be pursued. Although given a pseudo-political mission by the Singapore authorities Brooke undertook no official duties for Britain until 1844 when he was appointed \"agent near the person of the Sultan of Borneo\", a \"special and temporary office\", and was commissioned to find a site for a naval station along the northwest coast of Borneo.\n\nWhen Labuan was purchased from Brunei and created a British colony Brooke became its first governor in 1847. The same year he negotiated a consular treaty with the Sultan and was named consul to Brunei. His dual appointment from the Foreign and Colonial Offices came largely as a result of the reputation he enjoyed in England as a result of his successful battles against Borneo pirates. Not only was he popular with officers of the Royal Navy in the East who aided him in his anti-piracy warfare on the coast. His exploits had also been well publicised at home. In 1847 he returned to England, the hero of the day. He was fêted, given the freedom of the City of London, presented at Court at Windsor Castle, where the Prince Consort found him an interesting conversationalist, and was knighted.\n\nAt the end of the 1840s, then, Brooke found himself the possessor of three posts. He was Raja of Sarawak in his own right, and an officer of the Crown as Governor of Labuan and Consul to Brunei. The nature of his responsibilities in the three positions very soon created a conflict of interest situation and in 1854 he resigned his crown appointments.\n\n5 Aberdeen to Brooke, 1 November 1844, Foreign Office Series 12, Volume 2 (FO12/2).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213996, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 65, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "31\n\nCertainly, for heavy duty scaffolding laid out on a grid pattern, say when constructing a flyover and for other civil engineering work, metal scaffolding has advantages. Metal has already taken over in some cases from timber in areas such as hoardings around building sites and for site offices, when containers are sometimes utilised. Also, on large projects managed by the Government Housing Department, precast concrete units are used together with gondolas. This does away with much scaffolding.\n\nAlthough the change from bamboo scaffolding to metal has been much slower than many people expected over the past 40 years, especially with a limited number of trainee scaffolders entering the trade, the changing to metal can be expected to continue. Nevertheless, one can expect bamboo scaffolding, with its many advantages, to be in use for many years to come.\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nThe author is grateful to Mr Albert Tong Yat Chu, Mr Cho Hon Chiu and scaffolding instructor Master Chor Keung, all of the Construction Industry Training Authority, for the information and photographs they supplied. The author is also grateful to Mr Jimmy C. M. Yuen, of the Occupational Safety and Health Council and to Mr S. L. Lam, Senior Architect of the Architectural Services Department, for their assistance.\n\nREFERENCES\n\n \n 1.\n TC Lai, Hasem Role. Philip Mao, Hings Chinese (Hong Kong, 1971), pp 13 and 14\n \n \n 2.\n Shrona Anbe, Fhustle ontd Bamboo, the Life and Times of St. James Stewart Lockhart, Oxford University Press (1989), p. 58\n \n \n 3.\n Alfred Russel Wallace, FRS (1823-1913) British naturalist, widely travelled, had many publications to his credit. See Chambers Biographical dictionary (Revised edition 1961)\n \n \n 4.\n Ho So, The Craft of Chinese Scaffolding, Ho So Kee Construction and Scaffolding Co (Hong Kong, circa 1974), p 3\n \n \n 5.\n Naomi Yin-yin Szeto, 'Bamboo Scaffolding”, of Hearts and Hands Hong Kong's Traditional Trades and Crafts, ed Joseph Ting, Urban Council Museum of History (Hong Kong, 1995), P 219\n \n \n 6.\n Ho, loc cit\n \n \n 7.\n Anthony Walker and Stephen M. Rowlinson, The Building of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong Construction Association, Hong Kong University Press (1990), p 121-131", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 } ]