Description
Object description
Photocopy (52pp) of his ms diary, and related lists of addresses and other details, for December 1941 – March 1942 recording how, as a missionary priest who was the headmaster of St Thomas's School in Kuching, Sarawak, he was instructed by the Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak in mid December 1941 to take a small party of British women and children to Dutch Borneo to avoid their internment when Sarawak was occupied by the Japanese and giving details of the party's journey, mainly by boat, via the Dayak Mission at Somanggang to Pontianak in Dutch Borneo by early January, his oversight of the departure of his party (which included his wife and two children) and other evacuees by aircraft to Batavia in Java in mid January, his own evacuation, after much heartsearching, to Java by ship at the end of the month, the offer to him of an appointment as the chaplain to the resident British community in Java and his reasons for declining the position, and his voyage with his family on the BOISSEVAIN from 18-23 February from Java to Western Australia where he was given charge of a parish in the state; together with a valuable edited but abbreviated ts transcript (5pp) of the diary prepared in 2001 by Paisley's predecessor as the headmaster of St Thomas's School. The diary also includes interesting comments on Kuching's lack of defences in December 1941 and the perceived inefficiency of Sarawak's government officials and the Rajah, Sir Vyner Brooke.
Content description
Photocopy (52pp) of his ms diary, and related lists of addresses and other details, for December 1941 – March 1942 recording how, as a missionary priest who was the headmaster of St Thomas's School in Kuching, Sarawak, he was instructed by the Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak in mid December 1941 to take a small party of British women and children to Dutch Borneo to avoid their internment when Sarawak was occupied by the Japanese and giving details of the party's journey, mainly by boat, via the Dayak Mission at Somanggang to Pontianak in Dutch Borneo by early January, his oversight of the departure of his party (which included his wife and two children) and other evacuees by aircraft to Batavia in Java in mid January, his own evacuation, after much heartsearching, to Java by ship at the end of the month, the offer to him of an appointment as the chaplain to the resident British community in Java and his reasons for declining the position, and his voyage with his family on the BOISSEVAIN from 18-23 February from Java to Western Australia where he was given charge of a parish in the state; together with a valuable edited but abbreviated ts transcript (5pp) of the diary prepared in 2001 by Paisley's predecessor as the headmaster of St Thomas's School. The diary also includes interesting comments on Kuching's lack of defences in December 1941 and the perceived inefficiency of Sarawak's government officials and the Rajah, Sir Vyner Brooke.
History note
Cataloguer RWAS