A History of Scouting in the V.I. (PART II)

by Loh Kok Kin

EXPERIMENTING AND REORGANISING

In 1910, Mr Shaw sought to register the Troop with the Imperial Headquarters in London, but was instructed to refer the matter to the local association, which was then in Singapore, one founded by a Mr Frank C. Sands. In those early years, there were many changes of Scout Masters, beginning in 1910 when the School's first Scoutmaster, Mr Dainton, left for Java:

Mr Goodman Ambler (1910),
Lieutenant George Barber (1911/1912),
Mr C.G. Coleman (1912/1914)
Mr M. Wheatley and
Mr E.S. Redfearn (1921).

Mr Ambler was the first acting Secretary of the Local Committee of the Selangor Boy Scouts, which convened its first meeting at the Selangor Club at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, 28 September, 1910. He was one of the first V.I. European masters to leave for England for the war after he was granted nine months’ leave. Back in Europe, he held the rank of Captain, serving in the 12th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment. For his courage and loyalty (including being wounded three times and mentioned in dispatches), he was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry. He returned to the V.I. in January 1920. When England declared war against Germany in August 1914, Lieutenant Barber left the School in November of that year for the European front, where he held the rank of Second Lieutenant in the 18th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers. In his absence, Mr Coleman, the then Chief Assistant Master of the V.I. took charge of the Troop, acting in the office of Scout Master. Meanwhile, Mr Wheatley’s application to join the armed forces was rejected owing to defective eyesight. Soon the sad news came back that George Barber, while serving his King and country, had been killed at Lesboeufs in France, on 3 October, 1916. He had been in the First Battle of the Somme, an offensive launched by the Allies in July 1916 along a 21-mile front against the Germans. The casualties were horrendous - the British sustained 20,000 dead on the first day alone - and when the offensive ended four months later the Allies had gained a mere eight miles. The former V.I. Scout Master, 27 at that time, was just one statistic in the 420,000 British casualties. George Barber was survived by his parents, Henry and Harriett Barber of Macclesfield, Cheshire. In the early 1920’s, after serving ably as Scout Master, Mr Redfearn was appointed to the post of District Commissioner. It must be remembered that, unlike the present, the district at that time was the whole of the state of Selangor! But apart from being a keen Scout leader, Mr Redfearn was also known as an excellent geography master.

The appeal of Scouting began to catch on in the V.I. like wild fire. The burgeoning V.I. Troop, which had started with three patrols in 1910 and increased to four patrols in September 1910 and then to 12 patrols of eight members each in 1912, desperately needed leaders. And so the post of Assistant Scout Master was created, filled by the able teachers of the School. In 1910, two Assistant Scout Masters were appointed, namely, Mr Ng Seo Buck and Mr Wong Fook Yew. When they left the Troop in 1912 to become Officers in the Cadet Corps, five Assistant Scout Masters were appointed to replace them, namely, Messrs Mohamed Ameen Akbar, Wee Kok Thai, N. Appadurai/ Appathuray, Tay Lian Hee, and K. Sabapathy. Interestingly, the names of five V.I. ASM’s - Fook Han, Akbar, Appadurai, Lian Hee and Sabapathy - are also found on the first 1910 list of the V.I. Scouts submitted by Mr Ambler and Mr Shaw to the London Headquarters in order to register the First Selangor Boy Scout Troop. Kok Thai, though not in the pioneer batch, was nonetheless one of the early recruits of the V.I. Scouts in 1910. Such a trend is not surprising as Mr Shaw started the V.I. tradition (continued at least until the 1960’s) of actively recruiting Old Boys to join the V.I. Staff. This tradition was arguably the cornerstone in ensuring the V.I. was staffed by high quality teachers who were committed to the school.

Some of these early ASM’s are now regarded as legends of the Scouting movement for the region. Mr Sabapathy later left the V.I. to join another eminent institution of the region, where he sowed the Scouting seed - in 1922, he helped found the Scout movement in the Raffles Institution in Singapore. This group later became the Second Singapore Troop. Meanwhile back in Malaya, Mr Akbar was making his mark as the Scouting stalwart of Selangor. Even in those early years, he was already well recognised. In 1925, Mr Akbar was appointed as the Acting District Scoutmaster for Selangor (vice Mr Redfearn who was on leave to England) and, subsequently, was officiated into that capacity. He held that position simultaneously with his role as Assistant District Commissioner for Selangor. In these roles, he promoted the Scouting movement among schools in Selangor, feats which will be highlighted in the following paragraphs. For all of his gallant efforts, Mr Akbar was awarded the Bar to the Medal of Merit by Lord Baden Powell himself, when the Chief Scout visited Malaya. In 1993, a spiritual link with Mr Akbar was forged in the V.I. when his grandson, Mohd Ackiel Ali (another M.A.A.!) joined Falcon patrol of the Second KL Scout Group as a Form 1 member! Ackiel later became the PL of Eagle patrol in 1995.

Organising the V.I. troop was no mean feat as not only was there no precedent for the First Selangor Troop to follow, but also because of the rapid surge of interest in Scouting among the boys. The original three patrols grew to six patrols in 1911. The following year, the total strength of the Troop was about a hundred. By the time Mr Barber left in 1914, the Troop was about two hundred and fifty strong, an extraordinary number considering that there were only about five hundred pupils in the school at that time. As well, almost all Form Masters in the school were already Scouters. Initially, the School managed such rapid growth by increasing the number of patrols and Assistant Scout Masters. But by March 1923, there were 11 patrols; their patrol leaders were Lee Ah Swee, Chan Khee Hong, Mohamed (I) , Mohamed (II), Mohamed Sulong, Abdul Rahman, Mohamed Yacob, Lim Thin Chan, Keher Singh, Kwok Ah Keng and Vijeratnam. To continue to increase the number of patrols was clearly not feasible and so further restructuring was carried out in the later years.

ACTIVITIES - TROOP EVENTS, COMMUNITY SERVICE, SCOUT EFFICIENCY

So what was scouting in those infant years like? As the movement was still highly disorganised at that time, there was no standard uniform. But resourcefulness supplied the necessities. For instance, bamboo broom stick handles were used as Scout staffs. Troop meetings were held on Saturdays. There was a variety of activities; for instance, in 1911, Scouting games took place at the Lake Gardens. Indeed, the ‘out-of-door' Scout was common in those years and the patrols were often seen out-of-doors Scouting around KL. Camping was an important feature of the Scouting calendar. The first Scout camp for the V.I. boys (and possibly the whole of Malaya) was held during the August holidays in 1913 at Port Dickson and about 76 Scouts and officers attended, under the leadership of Mr Barber. In August 1916, a short camp for forty Scouts was held at Kelewai in Penang under Chief Assistant Scout Master (CASM) Akbar. He also presided over a camp in Malacca in August 1919, as well as over a short camp at Batang Kali in the Ulu Selangor district in August 1922.

Such accomplishments should not be judged by present standards. It must be remembered that in that far-off era, there was no organised public transport, what more a school bus, to ferry the Scouts to their destinations. Even if there had been such infrastructure, most pupils would have been too poor to afford such luxury. Much of Kuala Lumpur and its environs was still carpeted with thick jungle - indeed, one should not forget that those were the days when V.I. masters carried guns to shoot stray crocodiles that not infrequently lurked on the school grounds. Even in the 1930’s, as recalled by Tan Sri Dato’ Dr Abdul Majid Ismail, the Scouts merely hitched rides in factory lorries if they wanted to travel long distances, so what more the 1910’s. So it is in this context that we in the present should regard their camping feats, and other achievements as well, like the time, in December 1921, when 25 Scouts marched from Kuala Lumpur to Port Swettenham (now Port Klang), covering a distance of 29 miles in one day. Given the wild terrain on the route in those days, it must have been quite an epic march!

There were many other activities which helped to foster the ideals of Scouting amongst the V.I. Scouts. The Scouts served the community at large by participating in community events. One large civic event for Malaya in which the Scouts played an important role was the official visit of the Prince of Wales. The V.I. Scouts formed a guard of honour to welcome to Kuala Lumpur the heir to the British throne when he arrived on 28 March 1922. (This same Prince of Wales would later, in January 1936, become King Edward VIII but would infamously abdicate to marry a commoner, Mrs Wallis Simpson.)

The Empire Day celebrations each May were also important public functions for the Scouts. On Empire Day in 1922, for instance, the Troop was inspected by the Chairman of the V.I. Board of Trustees, Mr E.W.N. Wyatt. The following year, the Troop numbering 50 Scouts lined up for the march past led by Scout Master Mr Redfearn. Taking the salute was the Sultan of Selangor, Sultan Alauddin Sulaiman Shah, accompanied by the Raja Muda, Dato Setia Diraja, the Secretary to the Resident and the V.I. Headmaster, Mr Richard Sidney. Another important annual event at which the Scouts paraded was Armistice Day, also known as Poppy Day. Held on the 11th day of the 11th month every year, it commemorates the end of the First World War. The official function would take place in front of the Cenotaph which used to be located at what is today Jalan Tugu, beside the Kuala Lumpur Railway Station .

Besides community service, there was also socialising. During their trip to Penang in 1916, the V.I. Scouts struck up a close friendship with the Scouts of the Penang Free School and with Mr H.R. Cheeseman who was the Scout Master for P.F.S. - perhaps one of the earliest account of ‘pen-palling’ in Malaya! Indeed, the friendship continued for many years, and it is recorded that after the Prince of Wales parade on 28 March 1922, the V.I. Scouts fraternised with the Penang Scouts who were in the Federal Capital on a casual visit. The V.I. Scouts extended their friendship not just to other Scouts; in August 1922, during the camp at Batang Kali, the Scouts climbed Gunung Ulu Kali and visited the Sakais in the interior of the jungle.

It would be remiss for the administration to claim a job well done for merely organising the V.I. Troop. Indeed, even well organised Troops can eventually collapse if the business of Scouting is not properly carried out. In order to increase the efficiency of the Scouts, many strategies were devised. One specific strategy was the forming of ‘specialist’ sections. In early 1920, CASM Akbar and the Superintendent of the Selangor Fire Brigade, Mr W. Towle, formed the ‘Fire Section’ of the First Selangor Troop with a nucleus of 12 Scouts. This was, in fact, the first section to be formed east of the Suez Canal! There was also an Ambulance Section which was trained by Mr F.C. Barraclough, a V.I. teacher. Each year on Empire Day, there would be special displays put up by these sections to demonstrate their specialist skills. For instance, the ‘Fire Scouts’ would put up some sort of hut on the School field, set the hut on fire, and then extinguish the blaze.

A more general strategy to promote Scouting efficiency was to encourage the boys to acquire badges. Even in the infant days of the movement in Selangor, there were many tests to be taken. Among those in 1911 were Automobiles, Carpentry, Photography, Swimming, Life-saving, Ambulance, Pathfinding, Housemanship, Fire Brigade, Cycling, Pioneering and Blacksmith. The First Selangor Troop capitalised on the skills of its Scout Masters and external instructors for many of these tests. For instance, the Ambulance section was examined by a Dr Graham and the successful candidates earned the popular Red Cross badges. As well, involvement in the above-mentioned ‘specialist’ sections was useful, as evinced when a mere three years after the formation of the ‘Fire Scouts’, there were already 16 Scouts who qualified for the Fireman’s badge, three of whom proceeded to earn the King Scout badge. In addition to specialist instruction and badge-taking, Mr Redfearn, who took over the Troop in 1921, is credited with encouraging friendly patrol rivalry with a resulting increase in Troop efficiency.

V.I. SCOUTS BLAZE THE TRAIL

In addition to having the first Scout group in Malaya, the V.I. was a pioneer in many contexts. Chief Patrol Leader Choong Wan Chan became the first Boy Scout of the group to qualify as a King Scout in 1922. In doing so, he also became the first King Scout in Selangor. At the end of that year, he was the first student to be appointed to the role of Assistant Scout Master. Besides being an efficient Scout, Wan Chan was also a school prefect, and a member of the first Editorial Board of The Victorian. So versatile was he that he also trained the V.I. Cadet Corps shooting team. Under him, the cadets achieved a high level of marksmanship, carrying off the Leslie Shield in its inaugural year of 1925, which was open for competition to all Cadet Corps in the Federated Malay States. Close on Wan Chan's heels were two more King Scouts, namely, PL Wan Chong Chow and Scout Lee Ah Swee.

The V.I. Scouts were also instrumental in spreading the Scouting movement to other schools by helping them to start their own Scout Troops. For example, in 1925, Reverend Abel Eklund, Principal of the Anglo-Chinese School Klang invited Mr Akbar to raise a Troop in Klang. Mr Akbar addressed no fewer than 100 boys when he attended that inaugural meeting. The following year, Mr Akbar also started a Troop at the Maxwell Road School, at the invitation of the Headmaster Mr C. Beamish. The first Scout Master (Mr K. Peethamparam) and two Assistant Scoutmasters (Messrs Ujagar Singh and J.M. Idris) of that budding Troop were former members of V.I.'s First Selangor Troop! By that time, the first Wolf Cub Pack for Selangor had already been formed in the Victoria Institution in 1922. (Prior to 1930, the V.I. had both a primary as well as a secondary school.) This Pack, affiliated with the First Selangor Troop, was placed under the charge of Mr Chan Hung Chin.

Indeed, the First Selangor Troop was quick to earn its laurels. During the 1923 Empire Day, the Sultan of Selangor, Sultan Alauddin Sulaiman Shah, was deeply impressed by the parade and the displays by the Scouts. He was surprised that, prior to that time, no one had informed him that there were Boy Scouts in his State! So impressed was he that he promised to pay another visit in the near future. At the same time the Raja Muda was also very pleased with what he saw and offered to present the Royal Colours to the Troop. Surviving records do not tell whether the Colours were, in fact, actually presented to the Troop. However, it is recorded that this offer of Royal Colours was, without doubt, the first to be made to a Troop in British Malaya!