Missing pieces

1. His time as a young man had gone a very, very long time ago. It’s a shame that facts and figures pertaining to his teens might have been buried with the passage of time.

2. I’m so curious about his education. According to a report he was a promising young student at Penang Free School and was in the Queen’s Scholarship class, but his uncle “would not allow him to proceed to England even if he should win such a scholarship.” So he had to give up his study for the Queen’s Scholarship examination.

3. The report stated that after leaving school he joined the tutorial staff of his alma mater.  He’d made it in studies for sure, but how well he fared would remain unanswered indefinitely.

4. He taught for several years until he became senior assistant master. According to reports in local papers he was a popular teacher. It was during his time as a teacher that his name appeared in the List of Qualified Juror, Penang, 1904: Mahomed Ismail Merican, schoolmaster, Free School; Farquhar Street.

5. I’d heard rumours that his achievements as a government servant were attributed to his love of reading hence learning and not to any qualifications of which he had none. I believe his mastery of the English language had turned him into a highly articulate person leading to his appointment as high court registrar and later as assistant legal adviser. He was legal adviser and public prosecutor during the war.

6. In her book The Chulia in Penang, Khoo Salma Nasution cited an article on “datuk keramat” to relate about early Tamil sufi pioneers on Penang island. The writer of the article wrote under the initial MIM which according to Khoo Salma belonged to Mohamed Ismail Merican.

7. Some time ago upon meeting her at Areca Books store, I asked her how certain were she that the initial belonged to my father. She replied she was 99 per cent sure.

8. I’ve a feeling that that wasn’t the only article he’d ever written. To date our search for other pieces by MIM hasn’t borne any fruit. If we ever get hold of his writings we’d ultimately cherish them and do them justice.

9. Much about his migration to Alor Star as well as his marriages would remain as enigmas to us all. We would never learn the underlying factors that triggered off both events. We may only speculate about what had happened but may never learn the truth.

10. Lastly, according to the above mentioned report he took up private business after retirement. It seemed that to the last he was attached to a legal firm in Alor Star. It would be a great fulfilment if facts and figures about his venture were to be found one of these days. So our search continues...

Bits and pieces worthy of note

1. It’s gratifying how bits and pieces of facts and figures about my father gathered from libraries, archives and the internet has proved to be worthy of note. Prior to uncovering the treasure trove of information we all knew so little about him. If we were not determined to research him in the first place then we wouldn’t have been able to build up a picture of M. I. Merican.

2. My wife and I supported by our children began our search about seven years ago around the middle of 2013. We made time usually at weekends to do our search in the archives and libraries often putting in long hours scanning through long lists of official documents or pages of bound old newspapers for relevant information pertaining to my father.

3. Formerly our knowledge of his career in the Kedah Civil Service (KCS) was rather sketchy. Ever since my teens I knew he used to work as a high court registrar and assistant legal adviser. I learned about this from the inside of his book covers where he put down his signature and job title below. I couldn’t remember when I first came across his name in the list of members of the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JMBRAS). In the list for 1930 I learned that he worked at the legal adviser’s office. Years later I came across his picture in official uniform in a periodical issued by Kedah State Museum that featured several past figures in the state. Apart from his name, the caption stated that he was formerly a superintendent of education and a legal adviser.

His signatures on the inside of his book covers.

Cutting from list of members, JMBRAS 1930.

 4. We only got a better picture of his career after getting hold of his retirement file which was one of our early discoveries. We found the file in the Kedah and Perlis Branch of the National Archives Malaysia in Alor Merah. It contained his record of service and other documents such as forms regarding leaves and pension calculations as well as official correspondence.

5. The record of service listed his appointments throughout his time in the KCS which included jobs as headmaster, chief clerk census office, acting superintendent of education, senior auditor, high court registrar, registrar and acting sheriff, assistant superintendent monopolies and custom, and assistant legal adviser. He was acting under secretary II before retiring on 24 September, 1937.

6. At that time I noticed that his jobs as mentioned in the periodical were not consistent with that recorded in his record of service. And I thought it might be editorial errors until we made our second important discovery. It was a letter to the editor penned by LCL to the Straits Echo. In his tribute to my father the writer mentioned that “he was the first Malay in this country to become Legal Adviser.” And I wondered then why wasn’t it recorded in his record of service.

7. As I recall, vital documents, such as his death certificate and marriage certificate, were long gone with the passing of time. Attempts to get copies of those from respective departments were futile for want of actual dates. It was a stroke of luck that my wife found a very informative news report on his death in a fat volume of bound old newspaper at the Penang public library.

8. A lot of useful facts and figures about my father had emerged from that one article alone. At long last we learned things of note such as his actual dates of birth and death, place of birth, where he went to school and what his work was before he came over to Alor Star. The actual date of his death had facilitated the search for his death certificate. And for the first time we learned that he was recalled to service during the war.

9. Later on to our great delight we found his retirement “again” file in the Archives. The file mostly contained official correspondence including several of his letters. The letters shed light on his recall to service by the government of Kedah during the Japanese occupation. He was made head of Judicial Department hence his appointment as legal adviser and public prosecutor for Kedah and Perlis. That explained the confusion I had before about his appointment as legal adviser.

10. Our search had brought us as far as the capital city where we visited the National Archives and the National Library a few times to gather more information.  At the Archives we found several files regarding my father’s activities as a special translator of enactments for which he received remuneration. At the Library we found old government gazettes in which we discovered further information about his work.

11. The internet and digitization have actually facilitated our search for information. I first learned that my father was “a scion of a well-to-do family” from a site on the internet. This was later supported by an article on the history of the Noordin’s family from another blog.

12. We also obtained bits and pieces of facts and figures by virtue of digitized printed materials. For instance, we got hold of one otherwise buried article on the internet that carried remarks regarding the role played by my father in the translation committee entrusted with the herculean task of translating hundreds of enactments from English into Malay.

13. The story about my father’s involvement in the 1911 census taking in Kedah was also found on the internet. It explained the anomalous situation in which he was appointed headmaster on 26 February and chief clerk of census office on the following day.

14. The demise of his uncle, Habib, in 1909 and of his only brother, M. H. M. Noordin, whose funeral he attended was also discovered on the internet. So was the marriage of his brother’s only daughter, Kulsoom Bebe, to a local politician in 1929.

15. His climb to success could actually be traced in the occasional brief “Kedah” column of local newspapers where appointments of government servants were publicised. He began as a headmaster and worked his way up to become one of the important figures in the Kedah government service in the 1930s through his retirement period in the 40s and 50s. His importance was most evident in his recall to service during the war. Even in his later period of retirement his two cents worth still found space in local newspapers.

16. Lastly, we would never ever forget the contributory factor without which all this couldn’t have been possible. The librarians at the Penang library, archives officials at the national archives and the clerks of both institutions were very supportive of our search. Thank you all.