Humphrey Morrison Burkill

Last updated
Humphrey Morrison Burkill
Born(1914-12-08)8 December 1914
Died12 July 2006(2006-07-12) (aged 91)
Plymouth, United Kingdom
SpouseJoan Bloomer
Children1 son and 1 daughter

Humphrey Morrison Burkill OBE (8 December 1914 - 12 July 2006), was a director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens from 1957 to 1969.

Contents

Early life and education

Burkill was born to Isaac Henry Burkill and Ethel Maud Morrison on 8 December 1914 in the Director's House on the grounds of the gardens of the Singapore Botanic Gardens. [1] When Burkill was four, he was put in the care of a family from Yorkshire, and attended a preparatory school when he was eight. He attended Repton School when he was thirteen, and later attended Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. [2] He studied in the University of Cambridge and received a Bachelor of Arts in 1936. [3] He received his postgraduate degree in crop husbandry in 1939. [1]

Career

After getting a job from Dunlop Malayan Estates, Burkill returned to British Malaya to become a rubber planter, and learnt Malay and Tamil, which was expected of him, as well as Telugu and Thai. He later joined the Federated Malay States Volunteer Force. [2]

As the Japanese invaded Malaya during World War II, Burkill became part of the retreat to Singapore, after which he seconded to the Royal Engineers. Following the Fall of Singapore, he was detained in Changi Prison by the Japanese. He was sent to a labour camp in Thailand, where he collected wood cut in the countryside and transported it down a river. As he could speak Thai, he communicated with the local villagers and secretly did illicit trading. [2]

After the Japanese surrendered, he returned to Malaya to work for Dunlop, and became a botanist for the Rubber Research Institute of Malaya in 1948. [3]

Burkill was appointed as the assistant director of the gardens in 1954 by then Gardens director M. R. Henderson. He became the director in 1957, succeeding John William Purseglove. [1] He oversaw changes in the staff when Singapore became part of Malaysia, with the largely British administrators and researchers being replaced by locals such as Chew Wee Lek and Chang Khiaw Lan. [2] He oversaw the first serious investigation of Malayan seaweeds. Burkill delivered a paper on the Role of Singapore Botanic Gardens in the development of orchid hybrids in Singapore during the 1963 World Orchid Conference in Singapore. [1] [3]

Burkill retired from his position as director in the middle of 1969. [4] He was offered work at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew to revise Useful Plants of West Tropical Africa, which was written by J. M. Dalziel and published in 1937. [2]

Personal life

Burkill married Joan Bloomer on 28 June 1946. They have a son and a daughter. [1] Following his retirement, he and his family moved to England. His wife died in 2004. Burkill died on 12 July 2006 at his residence in Plymouth, England. [2]

Accolades

Burkill was awarded the OBE during the 1970 New Year Honours. [1]

Legacy

The Director's House on the grounds of the Gardens was later renamed Burkill Hall after both Burkill and his father. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malayan Union</span> Post-war federation of the Malay states and the Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca

The Malayan Union was a union of the Malay states and the Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca. It was the successor to British Malaya and was conceived to unify the Malay Peninsula under a single government to simplify administration. Following opposition by the ethnic Malays, the union was reorganised as the Federation of Malaya in 1948.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Singapore Botanic Gardens</span> Tropical garden located in Singapore

The Singapore Botanic Gardens is a 165-year-old tropical garden located at the fringe of the Orchard Road shopping district in Singapore. It is one of three gardens, and the only tropical garden, to be honoured as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Botanic Gardens has been ranked Asia's top park attraction since 2013, by TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Awards. It was declared the inaugural Garden of the Year by the International Garden Tourism Awards in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ibrahim of Johor</span> Sultan of Johor (r. 1895–1959)

Sultan Sir Ibrahim Al-Masyhur ibni Almarhum Sultan Abu Bakar Al-Khalil Ibrahim Shah was a Malaysian sultan and the 22nd Sultan of Johor and the 2nd Sultan of modern Johor. He was considered "fabulously wealthy."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Nicholas Ridley</span> English botanist and geologist (1855-1956)

Henry Nicholas Ridley CMG (1911), MA (Oxon), FRS, FLS, F.R.H.S. was an English botanist, geologist and naturalist who lived much of his life in Singapore. He was instrumental in promoting rubber trees in the Malay Peninsula and, for the fervour with which he pursued it, came to be known as "Mad Ridley".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tan Cheng Lock</span> Malaysian politician, 1st President of the Malaysian Chinese Association

Tun Sir Tan Cheng Lock KBE, SMN, DPMJ, JP was a Malaysian Peranakan businessman and a key public figure who devoted his life to fighting for the rights and the social welfare of the Chinese community in Malaya. Tan was also the founder and the first president of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), which advocated his cause for the Malayan Chinese population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Swettenham</span> British colonial official in Malaya

Sir Frank Athelstane Swettenham was a British colonial administrator who became the first Resident general of the Federated Malay States, which brought the Malay states of Selangor, Perak, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang together under the administration of a Resident-General based in Kuala Lumpur. He served from 1 July 1896 to 4 November 1901. He was also an amateur painter, photographer and antique collector.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Malaya</span> Former set of states on Malay Peninsula

The term "British Malaya" loosely describes a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the island of Singapore that were brought under British hegemony or control between the late 18th and the mid-20th century. Unlike the term "British India", which excludes the Indian princely states, British Malaya is often used to refer to the Federated and the Unfederated Malay States, which were British protectorates with their own local rulers, as well as the Straits Settlements, which were under the sovereignty and direct rule of the British Crown, after a period of control by the East India Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malayan National Liberation Army</span> 1949–1989 communist guerrilla army in Malaysia (formerly Malaya)

The Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA), often mistranslated as the Tentera Pembebasan Kebangsaan Malaya, was a communist guerrilla army that fought for Malayan independence from the British Empire during the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) and later fought against the Malaysian government in the Communist insurgency in Malaysia (1968–1989). Their central committee was a trade union activist known as Chin Peng who had previously been awarded an OBE by the British for waging a guerrilla war against the Japanese occupation of Malaya. Many MNLA fighters were former members of the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) which had been previously trained and funded by the British to fight against Japan during the Second World War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ungku Abdul Aziz</span> Malaysian economist (1922–2020)

Ungku Abdul Aziz bin Ungku Abdul Hamid was a Malaysian economist and lecturer. He was the 3rd Vice-Chancellor of the University of Malaya from 1968 to 1988 and the 1st General Director of the Council on Language and Literature of Malaysia from 1956 until 1957. He was awarded the title of Royal Professor in 1978.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Military Administration (Malaya)</span> Postwar administration of Malaya before its independence

The British Military Administration (BMA) was the interim administrator of British Malaya from August 1945, the end of World War II, to the establishment of the Malayan Union in April 1946. The BMA was under the direct command of the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia, Lord Louis Mountbatten. The administration had the dual function of maintaining basic subsistence during the period of reoccupation, and also of imposing the state structure upon which post-war imperial power would rest.

Sir Richard Olaf Winstedt, or more commonly R. O. Winstedt, was an English Orientalist and colonial administrator with expertise in British Malaya.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Royal Malaysia Police</span>

The Royal Malaysia Police trace their existence to the Malacca Sultanate in the 1400s and developed through administration by the Portuguese, the Dutch, modernization by the British beginning in the early 1800s, and the era of Malaysian independence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isaac Henry Burkill</span> British botanist

Isaac Henry Burkill was an English botanist who worked in India and in the Straits Settlements. He worked primarily in economic botany but published extensively on plant biology, ethno-botany, insect-plant interactions and described several species. He published a two volume compilation on the plants of economic importance in the Malay Peninsula, collating local names and knowledge. He also wrote a detailed history of botany in India. The plant genera Burkillia and Burkillianthus were named in his honour.

Richard Eric Holttum was an English botanist and writer.

Eu Chooi Yip was a prominent member of the anti-colonial and Communist movements in Malaya and Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s. Eu Chooi Yip was born in Kuantan, Malaysia.

Leong Sin Nam, alias Leong Sin, Leung Sin, Leong Sin Hee, was a Malaysian businessman. He migrated and settled in British Malaya in 1898. From humble beginnings, he worked hard to become a wealthy tin mine owner in Perak. He was a businessman, an active community leader and a philanthropist. He was a Chinese revolutionary with similar aspirations as Sun Yat-sen and a strong supporter of the Chinese war efforts during the Sino-Japanese war.

Richard James Wilkinson was a British colonial administrator, scholar of Malay, and historian. The son of a British consul, Richard James Wilkinson was born in 1867 in Salonika (Thessaloniki) in the Ottoman Empire. He studied at Felsted School and was an undergraduate of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was multilingual and had a command of French, German, Greek, Italian and Spanish, and later, Malay and Hokkien which he qualified in, in 1889, while a cadet after joining the Straits Settlements Civil Service. He was an important contributor to the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JMBRAS). On 7 November 1900 Wilkinson presented a collection of Malay manuscripts and printed books to the University of Cambridge Library. He was appointed CMG in 1912.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">M. R. Henderson</span>

Murray Ross Henderson (1899–1982) was a Scottish botanist who did most of his botanical work in the Straits Settlements and South Africa. He took a position as a botanist in Malaya in 1921 and became curator of the herbarium in the Singapore Botanical Gardens in 1924.

Burkill Hall is a historic bungalow in the Singapore Botanic Gardens. It is the last Anglo-Malayan plantation-style house in the region and possibly in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sydney Bacon Palmer</span>

Sydney Bacon Palmer was the first chairman of the Malaysian Estates Staff Provident Fund. He also held various roles in the Selangor Turf Club and the Rotary Club of Taiping, and was an advocate for the propagation of the use of natural rubber. He was also a member of the State Council of Perak, a Federal Councillor, president of the United Planting Association of Malaya and an unofficial member of the Malayan Union Advisory Council. He served on various Malayan committees and boards.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ong, Christopher. "Humphrey Morrison Burkill". Singapore Infopedia. National Library Board . Retrieved 7 June 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Obituary: Humphrey Morrison Burkill O.B.E., F.L.S. (1914—2006)". nparks.gov.sg. National Parks Board . Retrieved 7 June 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 "ORCHID WORLD COMES TO SPORE". The Straits Times . Singapore. 2 October 1963. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
  4. "The Botanic Gardens —where native plants grow undisturbed". New Nation. Singapore. 21 July 1972. Retrieved 10 June 2022.
  5. Cheong, Kash (10 February 2014). "Fairy-tale wedding amid the orchids". The Straits Times . Singapore.