A scanned copy of a 1936 newspaper article was kindly sent to the Archives by Helen Munro, who, together with her sister Jeannie Ledingham, holds their father Professor Archibald Syme’s collection of Christmas Island photographs and ephemera.
This interesting article includes details of social life, the people and the wildlife of Christmas Island in its early years. However, there is a bit of a mystery. The article, titled “My days on Christmas Island by W. Rus. Darling, of Glasgow”, and describing its author as the Island’s late Colonial Administrator, raises questions about whether Darling actually held that position as this does not appear in official records.
A clear indication of when Darling was on Christmas Island was revealed in a series of postcards that came up for auction in 2012, inward bound to the Island and variously addressed to Mr and Mrs Darling and their children. They establish that the Darling family was on the island from 1906, with a postcard dated July of that year referencing his recent arrival. The family’s stay appears to have continued until at least March 1909, although it may have extended somewhat beyond that date. Greta Beach was named after Darling’s daughter, Greta, while Darling Dale bears his own name.
A postcard sent from Cathcart, Glasgow to William Darling in July 1906.Image from Mossgreen Auctions catalogue (2015), accessed via the Leski Auctions archive.
A search in the Straits Settlements Government Gazette between 1900-1910 records the appointments, by name and date, of District Officers and their Acting counterparts. Their duties, as outlined in the Gazette were: Chief Police Officer, Magistrate and Commissioner Court of Requests, Coroner, Postal Agent, Deputy Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and Assistant Protector of Chinese Immigrants, Christmas Island and Harbour Master of the port of Christmas Island. Darling does not appear in the Gazettes at all. Yet his account in the newspaper article suggests responsibilities that overlap with several of these official appointments. Therefore, Mr Darling would have been employed by the Christmas Island Phosphate Company, not in a government appointment as the article suggested.
Perhaps Darling held the most senior position within the Christmas Island Phosphate Company, although the Island Manager during his time there was John Davis Murray, who held the post from 1906 to 1921. Darling himself also refers to the Chief Engineer in the article as a separate individual, further narrowing the question of what his actual role may have been.
With both the Island Manager and Chief Engineer roles accounted for, Darling’s place within the Company hierarchy remains puzzling. This suggests his account of his position in the newspaper article may have been somewhat inflated.
Further research into the 1891 UK census sheds some light on his background. An entry for William R. Darling, aged 22 and born in Scotland, records him working as a draughtsman, and he is very likely the same man. His death certificate from 1945 confirms he died in Glasgow and was recorded as a retired engineer’s draughtsman, suggesting this remained his profession throughout his working life. His precise role within the Christmas Island Phosphate Company remains unclear, but the evidence points to a skilled technical position rather than the administrative authority he claimed in the article.
The article below was published in the Sunday Mail on March 29, 1936 and reflects the colonial language and attitudes of the period. Image captions are as they appeared in the newspaper.
This map of Christmas Island shows Darling Dale, named after the writer, and Greta Beach, named after his daughter. The chief town is Edinburgh, in which the settlement house, called “The Castle,” is situated.
Mr. W. Rus. Darling (above), the writer of this interesting article.Photo of Mr. Darling specially taken by Mr. Andrew Paterson.
We were four days out from Singapore when the Captain touched my arm and said, “Your future home, Governor.”
A dark, jagged outline broke the haze on the horizon. This, then, was Christmas Island, one of the furthest outposts of the Empire, and over which I had been appointed Governor with the powers of dispensing justice to its 3000 inhabitants as well as superintending the building of roads, bridges, piers and railways, and developing the phosphate mines.
Until my appointment, I must confess, Christmas Island had been only a name to me, conveying little except the romantic associations of the South Seas in which it was situated.
Now I was faced by the reality.
The main township is named Edinburgh, and the home to which I was conducted was known, appropriately enough, as the Castle, although it was actually a large and comfortable bungalow.
The climate of Christmas Island is like that of a South of England summer all the year round. Semi-tropical and with the light sea breezes which usually accompany an island situation one never experiences the sticky discomfort of, say, Singapore, Penang or Colombo.
Early rising is the rule, and by 6 a.m. everyone is engaged one way or another in the work associated with the mining and shipping of phosphate.
Flying Fish Cove, especially when a ship is being loaded, is the busiest centre. Two fine steel piers jut far into the Indian Ocean so that ships taking a cargo of 7000 tons may safely lie alongside. Large and powerful conveyors carry the phosphate in a constant stream above the deck of each pier which is directed by shoots into the holds of the vessels.
CHINESE DORIC
These conveyors are fed from a large ferro-concrete bin extending crossways from one pier to the other, and this in turn is kept supplied from extensive storage sheds. This phosphate is in granular form and comes from the quarries in a more or less moist state.
Before storing, it has passed through rotary drying machines. Phosphate in rock form is stored in huge long heaps on the adjoining land, and the drying out is left to the sun. The harbour work, mooring and loading, is under the charge of the chief pilot with Malays, and the quality of the cargo is carefully looked after by the chemists. Samples are taken at short intervals, and if the moisture is beyond the maximum allowed the loaders are moved to a dryer portion of the store. The drying machinery and conveyors are in charge of capable engineers with Chinese workmen.
The chief engineer has never troubled to learn the Malay language, which is the working medium on the island, but gives his orders in good Ayrshire Scots.
“Hoo are ye the day, Yee Fan?” he called up a conveyor shaft. “Fine, thank ye, hoo’s yersel’?” instantly came the Chinaman’s reply. I asked a Chinese carpenter, Wo-man, one day what he wanted. “Rid leed, Tuan,” he said. I wrote an order for him on the store chit which every official carried for this purpose. “Red lead,” I said as I wrote. “Na, na, Tuan; no red lead, rid leed,” he hastily corrected me.
Stretching from the high scaffold and hoppers above the drying machines are the aerial ropeways reaching to the top of the cliffs. Tram lines from thence to the quarries on Phosphate Hill carry a constant stream of loaded wagons in trains of nine. The control is by drums and wire ropes, and the exertion of the loaded trains going down draws the empty ones up.
In the quarries another Scot is supervising the mining, and a visit to the quarries would suggest a day of monotony. But he has his moments. One day I had just dismounted from “Scottie” to have a word in passing when a sudden commotion at the edge of a huge waste heap, and the Chinese krani (clerk) who checks the trains ran down to investigate. “What has happened?” we asked, on his return.
“It hasn’t happened, Tuan,” he said calmly. We went to investigate for ourselves, and found that a coolie in tipping phosphate waste had overbalanced the truck and both truck and coolie had gone bowling down the bank. “Why don’t you go down after him?” the quarrymaster ordered. “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” the Chinese mandore replied, “he is plenty dead already.” We got him up, however, and he recovered, and was little the worse.
“Don’t forget that you are all dining with me to-night,” I said to the quarrymaster in parting, and having assured myself that the water tanks which I took in my ride were full, and indicating all well at the pumping stations I returned to the Settlement, pondering over the inscrutable mind of the Chinaman. My report on the water supply saved the engineer a journey, and he duly thanked me.
King Ross of the Cocos was my guest at this period, and I had invited all the staff to dinner in his honour. I cannot recall all the courses of that dinner, but I had an excellent Chinese cook, and, as was my custom, left all the dishes and arrangements to him and my No. 1 table-boy. Ross could not restrain his astonishment at the variety and quality of the dishes. He said he had thought his Malay cooks unbeatable, but now yielded the palm to mine.
The crowning item I must mention. The pumelo, as readers may know, is as large as a football when ripe for eating, and when at the end of the dinner the table-boys served each of us with a pumelo the size of an orange, my staff threw questioning glances at me, and evidently thought I was playing one of my jokes on them. Each pumelo was decorated on top with a twin-leaf spray and beads of glistening moisture sparkled on the green skin. Little silver spoons lay beside our plates, but no one made a move.
I, of course, as much puzzled as any, attempted to cover the situation for my royal guest’s comfort by engaging him in an animated talk on the value of papia fibre. At last, my secretary, toying with his spoon, accidentally flicked the leaves on his pumelo, and, presto, the top came off disclosing a filling of delicious iced jelly. We were soon all calmly lifting the lids off and enjoying the jelly, but it remains a mystery to this day how the cook had scooped out all those unripe pumelos and cut the top off so clean that the join was not visible. Ross was overcome, and rising from his seat bowed to me, and asked me to call the cook that he might personally congratulate him.
The pilot’s wife was the only white lady on the island at this time, and she gracefully accompanied on the piano any who could sing. The music started with the walnuts and wine, and finished when the voices grew too husky for clear utterance. A sober, but withal, typical entertainment of the festive land.
One feature of invitation dinners was that every guest brought his own table-boy, and thus ensured good and quick service.
FEROCIOUS ANTS
The insect life on Christmas Island is perhaps more prolific and varied than anywhere else. The most troublesome (perhaps the only really troublesome) of these were the ants — red ants, black ants, and white ants — each with their peculiar disagreeableness. The red ants are most ferocious biters, and bite immediately on touching the skin. Black ants are more ticklish, and bite at leisure. White ants confine themselves almost entirely to destroying timber structures.
Lounging one day on my verandah, I heard a piercing scream from the pilot’s lady, and, rushing to her bungalow, I found her in the garden, where, in picking flowers from a tree, she had shaken a host of black ants into her blouse. I had to strip her to the waist to get rid of them.
The mosquitoes here carried no malaria germs, and their bite was less annoying than our own Scots midges.
Birds are plentiful and varied. Some are not found elsewhere. The bo’s’n bird, with its yard-long tail-feathers, is a thing of beauty. At the mating season the female develops a bright scarlet tail-feather to attract the male. The frigate bird cannot fish for himself, so he watches the booby bird catching a fish and chases him till he drops it, and, swooping down, seizes it before it reaches the water. Frigate birds cannot rise from the ground, and must tumble off a cliff or tree before spreading their wings. I found one near the Settlement which measured eight feet from tip to tip of its wings. I could not cage it to hang in my hall, so told a Malay boy to carry it to the cliff and let it go. He took it in his arms and, like Alice with her flamingo, marched proudly away.
In demolishing the old wooden piers, I discovered some sea life hitherto unknown, and Dr. Andrews, of the British Museum, who was visiting Christmas Island at the time, took them back with him. My son, aged seven years, also collected a few specimens of beetles and flies of unknown species, which Dr. Andrews also took. He informed me later that these had been given our name.
The doctor, a Scot from Speyside, passed my house with a gun. “What’s the sport?” I asked. “Flying foxes,” he replied, “they are becoming too plentiful and destroying the fruit.” Horrible, rat-like, leather-winged creatures, they are not even good for sport. The Chinamen used to skin them alive and eat part of them, but I stopped this, as, for all their hideousness and seeming uselessness, such cruelty could not be approved by civilised white men.
Rain on the island is periodic, but irregular, and I had the experience of witnessing the record rainfall in the island’s history. The meteorological station records, which were kept by the chief chemist, show nine inches and a half for that day.
From dawn till dusk it fell in unceasing torrents, and all work was suspended. Across the Edinburgh Road a new river cut its way, rising in the cliffs behind the Settlement, and, bursting through the intervening jungle, it carved in a few minutes a bed nine feet in width and about two to three feet deep. It ran with undiminished flow for two weeks, and dried up in a single night.
This circumstance strengthened a theory I had formed with regard to the formation of the island, and also the constant water supply, which was quite unaffected by long dry spells. When Sir John Murray persuaded the British Government to annex Christmas Island, he was desirous of securing the scientific interest which the formation indicated. It was, he told me, the only example known of an atoll which had no lagoon.
One of three tram roads on the island.STRANGE TRIAL
The atolls, which are of volcanic origin, have generally subsided into the circle of the original crater, and the interior, filled with water from the sea, forms lagoons.
My theory was that a volcanic crust had formed over the lagoons, and the subsequent growth of the coral had raised the bottom beyond the sea level. The porous nature of the coral limestone rock and phosphate deposits allowed the rains to filter through and keep this underground lake supplied.
At the waterfall whence the drinking water for the Settlement was pumped there is a constant seepage of water through the soil, and this is collected into a concrete reservoir and thence pumped by stages over the hill to the Settlement.
My contention was that this water was drawn from an underground lake by capillary action, and when it was discovered, after the nine inches and a half rainfall, that the new two weeks river came from a hole in the face of the cliff, Sir John agreed with me that the water must have come from some lake which had been charged to overflowing by the extraordinary rainfall.
The original name of the island was Moni, and I have never discovered who made the change nor why. Law and order have been prominent features of Christmas Island throughout its entire history since, in 1888, Sir W. Henry May realised his schoolboy ambition by annexing it to the British Empire. I also have realised a schoolboy ambition by having my name on the map.
Before leaving for this little island kingdom I was invested with all the powers necessary for the conduct of an isolated colony. There being no cable or other means of communication with headquarters, except our little steamer, all matters of law and order had to be dealt with by the man on the spot. If it were necessary to hang a malefactor — well, just hang him! Gladly I record it that no such contingency arose, although I once did try a man for murder.
On another occasion I had the unique experience of putting myself on trial. It was a diplomatic move upon my part.
The close season for fruit pigeons had begun, when one day I absent-mindedly raised my gun and shot a couple of these birds. For this misdemeanour I had myself arrested — there was no one else to do it for me — and put in the dock, where I fired question after question at myself, and then read a long lecture upon my heinous crime, the bad example I had shown my “subjects,” and finished by asking myself sadly: “And what do you imagine would happen to these birds if everyone shot them in and out of season?”
I then dismissed myself with an admonition, and left the dock dejectedly and feeling my position keenly!
This trial, comical though it was, was necessary to uphold the prestige of the court over which I had jurisdiction. I had offended against the law, and must be punished even as I would punish any of the islanders under similar circumstances.
The powers of the Church of Scotland also were conferred on me, so that I might conduct services, solemnise marriages, or baptise children. I often wonder how my god-children are looking now.
Three funerals of our race darkened the pages of an otherwise happy period. The first was a captain whom I had brought ashore in a dying condition. All the skill of my excellent medical staff failed to save his life, and he died on Christmas Island on Christmas Day. [J.F. Jonsson – buried in the Old European Cemetery]
Sport had its place, and a fine football field existed when I arrived. Very soon I added a tennis court, and when ladies began to arrive this was a welcome addition to the amenities.
Among my happiest duties was that of postmaster, and it was a delight to have the mail-bags emptied out on the office floor and invite the anxiously waiting staff to step in and pick out their own. Occasionally I found it necessary to convert an ocean tramp into a mail steamer, and the captains proudly displayed their bunting indicating this new status, and no doubt blessing the shilling for every letter he carried through the Suez Canal.
On these occasions notice was sent round the whole colony, and most of the exiles, I am glad to say, took advantage of the opportunity to write an extra letter home.
Summer time daylight saving was in use on Christmas Island many years before we knew it here, and it was one of the chemist’s duties to see all clocks moved back or forward twice a year at the proper time.
Now that wireless has been installed and much more added to the amenities of the place, life may be fuller and pleasures more plentiful. The duties may be less onerous and advice in difficulties available, but life as a whole cannot be more pleasant or the duties more agreeable than they were during the years I spent in that far-off lonely island.