Registered Charity 273422 ISSN 0141-6588 CttOWKlDAR Volume 8 Number 4 Autumn 1998 Editor: Dr. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones 1llE JAVA GRAVEOF rnARLES Pill1Ef British Asso ciation For Cemeteries In South Asia (BACSA) 2'.ealander called Michael Pringle set out in search of his President Chairman Last Autumn a New The Rt. Hon. Lord Ree s, QC Mr. J. S. Hewitt, MBE great-uncle, Charles Pilliet, who had led an adventurous life in the Dutch &st Vice Presidents Executive Committee Indies as a geologist , explorer and pearl fisher before finally settling in Lawang, Mr. V. E . Davie s, OBE Mr. D . H . Barnard east Java, about 1926. Pilliet had been born in New 2'.ealand in 1869, and left on Sir J ohn Lawrence, Bt., OBE Dr . R J. Bingle his travels at the tum of the century . What he did and how his story was pieced Mr. H. C. Q. Brownrigg Council together is told in the words of his great-nephew. Michael Pringle was aware of Mr. C. Carnaghan Sir Nicholas Barrin gto n, KCMG, CV O Mr. D. H . Dob le some family stories about Charles, and of the letters he had written home to his Sir William Benyon Dr. A. Dunlop, OBE, MB, DP H sister, from about 1910 until the Japanese invasion. Charles died in 1959, aged Sir John Cotton, KCM G , OBE Miss S. M. Farrington ninety, so Mr Pringle was hopeful of finding someone alive today who might have Mr. ,\. Farringt on J. Mrs. M. Hywel-Jo nes Sir Charles Fross ard, KBE known his great-uncle. 'Lawang is a small town near Malang, reached by crowded Mr. P ..A. Leggatt, MBE Mr. R B. Magor minibus for a few pence .' A young motorcyclist took him to a small shop in Jalan Mr. D . W. Mahoney,FRICS The Rt . Hon . Th e Viscount Slim, OB E Mr. M. J. Murphy Pendowa 'where I showed my photograph of Charles to the shop keeper. He Mr. H. M. Stokes Mr. J.A. Payne recalled that an old European man had lived in the street , and indicated the house Lady Wade-Gery Mrs. P. Saul where he lived. A neighbour who could speak English was fetched. She informed Mr. Wall (Press and P ublicity Officer) H onorary Secretary J. me that they did know Charles Pilliet but the person who knew him best was Mrs Miss C. M. Whitehead Mr. T. C. Wilkinson, MBE Supiyo in Singosari, and the motorcyclist was instructed to take me the few 76\ Chart.field Avenue Honorary Treasurer kilometres to her house.' London. SWlS 6HQ Mr. J.Quick, FCCA Membership Secretary & Dt:puty Tre asurer Editor 'Conversation was difficult but I had found the right place. Two photographs of Mrs. Rosemarie Wilkinson Dr. Rosie Llewe llyn-Jones Charles were on the walls, and several large pieces of his furniture filled the tiny rooms. I was able to fill in the last twenty years of Charles ' life, from the time just Notes on BACSA before World War Two when he had unofficially adopted Mrs Supiyo and her sister, the nieces of his housekeeper, as his own, until his death. Before the War le with a co ncern for t he The Association was formed in October 1976 to bring together peop he had run a vegetable plantation on the hills near Lawang. He had been held in an many hundreds of European cemeteries, isolated graves and monuments in South Asia. internment camp in Singapore during the Japanese occupation, and after release he There is a steadily growing membership of over 1,800 (1998) drawn from a wide circle of returned to his house in Lawang still inhabited by Mrs Supiyo , her aunt and sister. logica l interest- Government; Churches; Services; Business; Museums; Historical & Genea He was however reduced to poverty, and spent the last years of his life boiling Societies. More members are needed to support the rapidly expanding activities of t he buffalo bones in his garden to make rheumatism oil for the girls to sell on the Association - the setting up of local committees in India, Pak istan, Banglades h, Burma, Sri On books and papers were lost, and only his furniture and two Lanka, Malaysia etc., and the building up of a Records archive i n the Orien tal and India Office street his death, his Collections in the British Library; and many other projects for the upkeep of historica l and model pearl-fishing boats went to Mrs Supiyo. She told me that Charles had been architectural monuments . buried at the Catholic cemetery at Sentong Baru, three kilometres into the hills above Lawang, but she did not believe that his remains were now in the same The enrolment fee and subscription rates are obtainable from the Secretary. grave in which they had been placed in 1959. His body had been shifted in 1965 and again in 1982. Both times were to make way for the enlargement of the Chinese cemetery, but was still somewhere at Sentong Baru.' The Association has its own newsletter, Chowkidar, which is dist ributed free to a ll members twice a year and contains a section for 'Queries' on any matter rela ting to family history or 'The next day I organised a motorcyclist to take me up to Sentong Baru, and on condition of a relative 's grave etc. There are also many other publications bot h on ceme tery surveys and aspects of European social history out East. route, we stopped at a timber factory where the manager, who could speak a little English said he would come and join what was to become a small party intent on Editor: Dr. Rosie Llewell yn-Jones 135 Burntwood Lane, Londo n SW 17 OAJ finding the grave. The cemetery was disappointingly scrubby, dusty and unkempt, but from the few headstones that remained I could tell it was the area that had 69 been set aside for European burials. An elderly woman who had been clearing Ghat on the evening of 29th May 1892, by being precipitated down the hillside in scrub around graves was despatched to fetch a map and after examination of the a torrent of hail and rain unprecedented in the recollection of the oldest accompanying list of European burials we were able to determine that Charles lay inhabitant.' in grave No. 49. This was located by comparing the names on surrounding graves with their location on the map. It was a satisfying end to my quest and a cause of Timothy Davies from Dorset has sent in a most interesting family tree tracing his great interest amongst family back home in New Zealand. The Javanese had roots back to the 17th century and across Germany, Ireland and Scotland, with displayed great kindness and determination to help. Anyone contemplating a strong Indian links. His great-great-grandfather was the celebrated German similar journey should be prepared to allow plenty of time, to let events take their evangelical missionary, the Rev Johann Andreas Wernicke (1816-1861), who with course, and to carry a generous supply of rupee notes for those little thank-yous'. a group of young farmers from Brandenburg set out in 1837/8 for India 'with (see illustration on page 80) almost no funds, absolutely no training or experience of foreign places, no language other than German and ended up pioneering in Darjeeling, with their descendants being driven to tea planting'. The Wernickes inter-married with other MAILBOX missionaries, the Stolke, Niebel and Lindeman families to be precise and several of their graves are still to be found in the old Darjeeling cemetery, one of An under-researched area of British India is surely that of its Botanical Gardens, BACSA's current restoration projects, in collaboration with the local cemetery set up not only in the Presidency towns but often in smaller, out of the way places committee. (see page 81) too. The Royal Botanic Garden in Calcutta seems to be the earliest, founded by the Bengal Engineer Colonel Robert Kyd, who became its first Superintendent in Johann Andreas Wernicke lies there with his infant son William Benjamin, and 1786. During a visit to Assam ten years earlier Colonel Kyd had found wild nearby is Carl Gottlob Niebel 'who preached the Gospel for 23 years to the people cinnamon plants there and his success in growing them in Bengal, at a time when of these hills, and who fell asleep in Jesus on the 9th October 1865 aged fifty-five the cinnamon trade was substantial, exemplifies the connection between botany years. By his side rests his beloved child Maria Rachel, aged 2 years'. It was this and commerce, often forgotten today. Tea and quinine are only two of the dedicated man who translated the scriptures into Lepcha for the local people. In products of the plants that flourished here. So it was particularly interesting to notes left by Timothy Davies' mother, Kathleen, she describes the cemetery on her receive a letter from new member Geoffrey Rowson whose great-uncle, William last visit in 1928: 'Besides the members of our family, and most of them closely Graham Mcivor (1825-1876) was sent out to Ootacamund in 1848, after training grouped together, lie the bodies of my Wernicke great-grandparents, my as a horticulturist at Kew, to take up the post of Superintendent of the recently grandfather James Andrew Wernicke, his son Henry who died as a boy at St Paul's established Botanic Gardens there. 'I have suppositional evidence' writes Mr School, and my father Froest Andrew Wernicke.' Rowson 'that he was responsible for persuading his nephew, my grandfather, to join him in Ooty in 1869, thus beginning my direct link with India, which ended Life was hard for these early settlers, as the deaths of their young children show.