Passing of pioneer planter Bennet in North Borneo

Published on: Saturday, January 22, 2022

By: British North Borneo Herald

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2ND MARCH. 1940

The death of Mr C Peto Bennet on the 17th January at the age of 84 breaks another link with the past. Son and nephew of timber men who were well known in the Mahogany trade he started his own business in 1877 in Lombard Street, and stayed there for 56 years until in 1933 his firm’s address was changed to Shell-Mex House.

There, sitting at the same desk which he had used in 1877, be continued in his new surroundings to display a keen and helpful interest in every phase of his firm’s business.

As recently as the week before his death he attended Board Meeting of three of his Companies and thus, as he would have wished, died in harness.

Starting business as a softwood agent, he early saw the potentialities of the boxboard business, and in the 1880’s he began that specialised interest in that side of the timber trade which made his firm one of its pioneers.

The British Boxboard Agents Associations recognised his claim to the title of G.O.M. of the boxboard trade by electing him its President for several years until he himself decided that he should make way for younger blood, yet the verve with which he presided at the annual dinner belied his years.

Some fifty years ago he paid his first visit to British North Borneo, and was for many years Chairman and Managing Director of The North Borneo Trading Company Ltd., as well as the Tuaran Rubber Estates, Ltd., relinquishing these offices in recent years to his eldest son, while he retained membership of the boards until the last.

He was also a pioneer in the marketing in the United Kingdom of Australian hard-woods and was a founder and Director of Millar’s Timber & Trading Co. Ltd.

His travels were extensive and he used to say that he did not himself know how many times he had crossed the “line”.

Australia and Borneo, China and Japan were visited on many occasions.

During the last war he paid annual visits to Canada and the United States to arrange supplies of boxboards for national purposes and it is a sad coincidence that his son Alfred is in Canada on a similar mission at the present time.

He was pleased, two years ago, to repair one of the deficiencies of his earlier travels by paying a visit to New Zealand, when he showed his perennially youthful spirit by flying over the glaciers which he was unable to visit on foot.

One of the earliest motorists, he was a founder of the Automobile Association, of whose Executive he had been a member for many years past.

His tastes were simple and included a love of Shakespeare which, in conjunction with his retentive memory, enabled him to declaim long passages from almost all the plays.

He was a raconteur whose stories ranged from City men both celebrated and infamous, to the drama and Gilbert and Sullivan opera.

He had especially intimate connection with Norway, his wife being a member of a well-known Trondhjem family, and both his sons followed his example by marrying Norwegian ladies.

Widespread sympathy will be felt with Mrs Bennett and her two sons, Alfred Peto and Charles Peto in their bereavement.

The cremation at Golders Geen on the 19th January was attended by members of the family besides representatives of the firm of C. Peto Bennett, Millars’ Timber & Trading Co. Ltd., the North Borneo Trading Co. Ltd., Tuaran Rubber Estates Ltd., Messrs. James Webster & Bro. Ltd., Anglo Timber & Trading Co. Ltd., and Duffell Waterman & Co., while floral tributes were received from a large number of firms in the timber trade, of which Mr Bennett had been a respected member for so many years.

REMINISCENCES

We are indebted to Datoh F W Douglas for the following extract from a letter to him from Capt. Berkeley, a former District Officer, Upper Perak.

“Congratulations on the success of the Agricultural Show. It seems to have been a huge success getting better every year. It is a long cry to our Show in Taiping in 1894 which coincided with the opening of the New Club in the Istana and then our Show in 1895 at Batu Gajah when he had an elephant race to the delight of Sandy Swettenham.” Datoh Douglas adds:

“I was not at the ‘94 Show but did go to that at Batu Gajah in ‘95. The elephant race was a marvellous affair; 27 entered and they thundered along shaking the whole place.

The late Datoh Panglima Kinta swore he would win and rode his own big elephant and dared anyone who can pass him but a little baby elephant got in front and was so scared that it kept ahead squealing like any-thing and won??? Sandy Swettenham was the brother of Sir Frank. The distance of the race was about 4 furlongs.

I spent a delightful 10 days up the Perak river hunting for exhibits and returned with one pig with 5 legs, apart from other things which were more legitimate exhibits.

The prize for the best bull went to a bullock because the two judges had had so many drinks that they were afraid to bend down!!

We had a skye meeting as well as the elephant race and a game of rugger too but that was rather a sad affair as no one had been in training.

The crowning end to the whole show was about 3 a.m. after a heavy dance night when we routed out various people from their beds including the Swettenhams who took it very well and then the Governor of British North Borneo whom we bumped on the floor without knowing who he was. We had pinched all the band instruments and made a most informal noise.”

A few, more lurid, extracts have to be withheld, but apparently life in Malaya in the `90’s was not altogether a dull affair. - The M.A.H.A. Magazine, January, 1940.