A career as a forest assistant in northern Siam

In 1897, shortly after leaving Oxford University, Mr. William Reginald Dibb left for Calcutta, India, via a ship called ‘Simla’. In Calcutta he decided to take the examination for the Bengal Superior Police. However, it was unfortunate that he came fourth, but only three appointments were made.[i] He therefore chose to join the Bombay Burmah Trading Coperation Ltd. (BBTC), which was operating a teak business in northern Siam at that time, as a forest assistant. He was posted at a company branch in Lakon (or Lampang as it is now called) from 1899-1904 and later in Phrae from 1905-1915.

[i] Full text of "Trinity College School Record, February 1898- December 1908"

From the nineteenth up until the early twentieth century, many Northern provinces of Siam, including Chiang Mai, Lakon, Phrae, and Nan, were known as Lao provinces. They were loosely bounded to Southern Siam only by their sending of token gifts during a triennial visit to Bangkok. These provinces were governed by their own Chiefs called Choa Luang, while their relatives were called Chao. Life in northern Siam at that time was harsh and austere, especially for young Europeans who worked for a teak company like BBTC. The journey in this Lao’s provinces was arduous, especially for those forest assistants, or teak wallahs, who spent their lives mostly in the jungle, only returning to base at Christmas and at the end of season in April.

As a forest assistant, W.R. Dibb’s job was to assist in getting teak logs out of a remote jungle and to move them to a saw mill in Bangkok. At that time BBTC controlled seven forests in Lakon, of which the most important was Mg Kalah's Mee Song forest, which comprised the head waters of the Mae Wang on both banks. In addition, the other source of supply in the Lakon district was the forest controlled by Louis T Leonowens. Leonowens signed an agreement with BBTC in January 1898. The agreement stipulated that he had to deliver the logs from Me Prick forest to BBTC, and he also had to sale to BBTC all his forest supplies from his other forests. However, following Leonowens’ various misdemeanors, the BBTC cancelled their agreement at the end of 1901.[i]

To start the process of work, teak trees had to be girdled about 2-3 feet above ground, i.e. the sap-wood was cut away till the heart-wood was shown all around. Then they were left to dry for two years before they were cut and dragged by elephants to the closest tributary rivers. When flooding season started teak logs would be pushed and prodded by elephants into the rivers, while extreme care had to be taken so that no stack of logs would form. These logs would then float unattended, one by one, down to a rafting station in a deeper and broader major river, such as the river Wang as shown in the above figure, where no more rapid or water fall would be found ahead of it.

The first rafting station was usually a few hundred kilometers away from the primary sources of teak logs. At the station, teak logs would be collected and assembled into rafts before completing the journey to Bangkok, which would take up to 5 years to complete the whole process. Such practices were unique while other parts of it could be a fascinating scene to watch, as it was written by Reginald Campbell in his book ‘Teak-Wallah’:

“No stack has yet formed, but the timber is coming down faster and faster from the north, and the leviathans are finding plenty to do in keeping the logs riding free of one another. The uproar as we go up and down the river is terrific. The trumpeting and bellowing of elephants, “swooshes” of collapsing portions of the bank, the crackling and booming of timber, yells of mahouts and chainmen, the thrumming of the stream-these and other sounds combine to make one great blare of noise.” [ii]

[i] Macaulay, R.H., History of the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation, Ltd.1864-1910 (Privately printed by Spottiswoode, Ballantyne. Co. ltd, 1934)

[ii] Campbell, R, Teak Wallah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986); Le May, An Asian arcady (W. Heffer, 1926)

While Dibb was in Lakon there were some incidents worth mentioning. The first incident was the suicide of his colleague at BBTC, C.E. Fairholme, in 1901 at the age of thirty, which suggested that life in northern Siam was probably difficult and lonely in those days. The untimely deaths of various causes were probably a subconscious concern for all expatriates. In 1898, the matter had earlier been referred to the Siamese Commissioner in Chiang Mai, which prompted King Chulalongkorn to bestow a gift of land near Chiang Mai Gymkhana club. This land was, from then on, used as a foreign cemetery, and it was where the body of Fairholme was buried.

As for the Gymkhana club, it was founded on April 6^th 1898 by eleven foreign residents, including Louis T Leonowens the son of Mrs. Leonowens the author of a controversial novel ‘Anna and the King of Siam’, who gathered in the flagstaff rotunda of Phya Song Suradet, the Siamese High Commissioner at that time. The club was intended only for use by Europeans, with the exception of a few invited influential Siamese and Chao Lao. The club was quiet during the year with few activities except at Christmas. During Christmas gatherings, there were generally racing, polo, golf, cricket, tennis events. The club also had a bumble puppy. Parties were also held with plenty of dancing and drinking.

In later years, the hosting of this Christmas gathering was alternated between Chiang Mai Gymkhana club and Lakon sport club, which was founded around 1908, on a land bought in 1906 by a Bombay Burmah’s forest assistant, Mr. E.P. Miller. Mr. Miller was later shot dead by dacoits, in a forest south of Chiang Mai, in 1910.[i]

[i] Prof. Kittichai Wattananikorn, British Teak Wallahs in Northern Thailand from 1876-1956 (White Lotus Press, 2018)