Reliving the history of the 1856 Borneo Company limited
Published on: Thursday, November 17, 1955
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Records that have grown yellow and dusty with time are being taken out of storage, their information sorted and sifted for use in a booklet (to be published next year) to mark the centenary of The Borneo Company, Limited.
“B.C.L.”, as the organisation is popularly termed was registered on June 5, 1856. Founded primarily for the purpose of developing the resources of the territories in the Island of Borneo then under the rule of the first white rajah of Sarawak, Sir James Brooke, for many years it worked valuable gold mines in the area.
Today, the company handles agency work of mines and estates, insurance, shipping, manufacturers agencies, engineering, contracting and general merchandising from its offices in Singapore, Malaya, Borneo and Thailand. Subsidiaries and associated firms in Malaya operate, among other things, in the manufacture of bricks and tiles, in the distribution and servicing of motor cars and lorry transport, and in contracting work.
Head office is in London, where the board of directors meet fortnightly.
Among the collection of old documents, which miraculously escaped, the explosive fury of Hitler’s bombing attacks on London, are many papers recalling incidents of historic interest.
They were turbulent years when the company first operated in Borneo. An extract from an official publication concerning a Chinese rising in Sarawak, in 1856, reads:-
“The Rebels again attacked in force and the little party of Europeans including the Rajah, the Bishop and A.C. Crookshanks, retreated down river to Santubong leaving the town of Kuching in flames. Providentially, the Borneo Company’s steamer the SIR JAMES BROOKE from Singapore arrived that day. The Rajah joined her and proceeded up river again. The pursuit and after rout of the Chinese quickly followed at the hands of the Dayaks, who pursued them relentlessly to the Dutch Border, taking several hundred heads.”
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