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ABSTRACT
A.W. Hamilton (1887–1967) was a colonial police officer who demonstrated a keen interest in the Malay language. He was a regular contributor to various magazines and journals during the colonial period. His writings, which encompass various aspects of the Malay language, Malay sayings and love charms, flora, fauna, feasts, and festivals, reflect his diverse interest in his surroundings. Also known as Haji Hamilton, he was a translator as well. He is perhaps best known for his translations of English nursery rhymes into Malay, which were published six times over a period of 70 years. Upon his retirement from the police force, Hamilton settled down in Australia. He is often credited for having made among the earliest effort to introduce the Malay language in Australia, although it did not prove to be very successful. In spite of this, very little is publicly documented about Hamilton. This article aims to explore some aspects of Hamilton’s life and discuss his language indigenisation in his translation of nursery rhymes into Malay, with the aim of providing some insights into the life of a colonial officer who was unwavering in his interest in and devotion to the Malay language.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, who provided insightful and helpful comments and gave suggestions for improvement. All remaining shortcomings are my own.
Notes
1 The Grove Community History Library, Peppermint Grove, Perth, Western Australia, pers. comm., 27 October 2020. The information from the library has been confirmed by William D.O. Hamilton, pers. comm., 29 December 2021. William Hamilton is the grandson of Kismet Leland Brewer Hamilton, A.W. Hamilton’s brother.
2 SOAS MS359656/1 – How I learned to speak Malay.
3 Hamilton later wrote on Chinese loanwords in Malay, commenting that due to the fact that most Chinese immigrants came from Amoy, ‘almost all the Chinese words incorporated in the Malay language have been borrowed from Hokkien, the vernacular of the Amoy district’ (Hamilton Citation1924: 48).
4 Recruiting native Chinese translators/interpreters to facilitate communication, especially in courts, was not a possibility due to presumptions regarding their moral character. King (Citation2009: 433) explains that ‘in the judicial context of the Straits Settlements, worries about Chinese venality, which made them susceptible to external influence in the form of bribes, carried the day. The only way to guard against the presumed failures of Chinese moral character was to attempt to find Europeans to supervise translation’. The setting up of the Chinese Protectorate, according to Ng (Citation1961: 82) ‘inaugurated the building up within the Straits Settlements Civil Service of a corps of European officers who were qualified to handle the Chinese affairs directly without the need of an Interpreter’.
5 Syed Mahmud bin Syed Abdul Kadir al-Hindi (1865–1913) or Bhai Mahmud (bhai meaning ‘brother’ in Hindi), a Muslim of Indian ancestry, was born in Singapore and received his education at the Raffles Institution (Warnk Citation2007: 96–97). Not only was he fluent in Hindustani, Malay and English, but he also knew French, Arabic, Persian and Tamil, and even tried learning Chinese (Winstedt Citation1940: 144). His dictionary, Kamus Mahmudiah, was published in Singapore in 1894. Syed Mahmud and his father-in-law, Mohd. Ali Munshi, were joint editors of the one of the earliest weekly newspapers in Singapore, Taman Pengetahuan (Nik Ahmad bin Haji Nik Hassan Citation1963: 44). He was also a translator and interpreter at the Education Department and later at the Supreme Court (Zainal Abidin bin Ahmad Citation1940: 144). Syed Mahmud was clearly well suited to the task of teaching Hamilton, for he was part of the Jawi Peranakan, an elite community made up of Straits-born Muslims with mixed (Tamil-Malay) ancestry and whose members were mostly English-speaking, well-educated professionals who held important jobs.
6 SOAS MS359656/1 – How I learned to speak Malay.
7 This translates literally as ‘The author too can be said to be the son of Telok Belanga (a place in Singapore) and Tanjong (Penang) as these were the places where he learned to speak Malay’.
8 William D.O. Hamilton, pers. comm., 29 December 2021. William Hamilton has kindly shared personal notes on A.W. Hamilton and his siblings, which were compiled by his father, Michael Brewer Hamilton (Citation1922–2017), son of Kismet Leland Brewer Hamilton and nephew of A.W. Hamilton.
9 See also entry on William Haywood Hamilton, Royal College of Surgeons of England website. <https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/lives/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ASSET$002f0$002fSD_ASSET:377197/one?qu=william+haywood+hamilton&te=ASSET> Accessed 15 July 2022.
10 It was reported in the Weekly Sun (Citation1912: 5) that ‘twenty-one Cantonese shoe-makers were prosecuted by Mr. Hamilton, Assistant Superintendent of Police, for playing paikow, dominoes and dice in a common gaming house No. 48 Middle Road. Mr. Hamilton said he raided the house with a number of police constables and found all the accused in lots gambling at different tables. He had all of them arrested. There was a corpse in the house’.
11 National Archives of Malaysia 1957/0610887W – Enquires whether two experienced and steady inspectors from the S.S. Police can be seconded for service in Kedah.
12 National Archives of Malaysia 1957/0383887W – A.W. Hamilton, Assistant Commissioner of Police North, asks that he be granted a month’s leave on medical ground.
13 SOAS MS359656/1 – ‘The meaning of the word “Haji”’. Young Malayans (226), p. 50.
14 National Archives of Malaysia 1957/0510074W – A.W. Hamilton, Report on pilgrimage conditions 1927.
15 George Crowley, pers. comm., 8 January 2018. Crowley, aged 84 and resident of Sydney, addressed Hamilton as ‘Uncle Haji’, who was a friend of his parents, Kevin and Gwen Crowley, living at Belleview Hill, Sydney, in the 1940s. Crowley recounts the following:
I have only one clear memory of Haji and that relates to the night in 1942 when midget Japanese submarines attacked Sydney harbour. The garage of our home, only completed in 1939, was designated the official air raid shelter for the neighbourhood. I clearly remember Haji running into my room and picking me up and running down to the shelter pretending that we were going to have a wonderful game and that we must not be late. I had total confidence in him.
16 William D.O. Hamilton, pers. comm., 31 October 2020. William Hamilton, the grandson of Kismet Leland Brewer Hamilton, A.W. Hamilton’s brother, who was in the Indian Civil Service, does not remember meeting A.W. Hamilton, as he was 10 when Hamilton died. In 1953, however, A.W. Hamilton sent a copy of his 1947 book of translated nursery rhymes to William’s parents, Michael Brewer Hamilton and June Hamilton, née Ormrod. The book bears the inscription ‘To Mike and June. Best wishes, Arthur, Perth, W.A, 2.7.53’. The book is currently in the possession of William Hamilton in England.
17 For a description of the history of the Malay language in Australia, see P.S. Thomas (Citation2019).
18 The Grove Community History Library, Peppermint Grove, Perth, Western Australia, pers. comm., 27 October 2020.
19 Shunmugam (Citation2015: 108) states that during the colonial period, most scholarship on the Malay verse form, the pantun, came from three British colonial officers: R.J. Wilkinson, R.O. Winstedt and A.W. Hamilton.
20 The publication of Hamilton’s translation was announced in a number of newspapers in 1935 (Malaya Tribune Citation1935a: 10; Straits Times Citation1935: 12; Straits Budget Citation1935: 6; and Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicles Citation1935: 10). Bob Forrest, however, argues that it was published much earlier, that is, in 1932. See: <https://www.bobforrestweb.co.uk/The_Rubaiyat/N_and_Q/W_G_Stirling/W_G_Stirling.htm#n01a> Accessed 25 June 2022.
21 See Index to the Journal of the Straits/Malayan/Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 1878–2020.
22 Hamilton, according to Tiew (Citation1998), contributed 21 articles, the first of which was published in 1920 to the journal. The first article, ‘Hindustani, Tamil, Sanskrit and other loan words in Malay’, was actually published in 1919, and Hamilton contributed a total of 22 articles between 1919 and 1947.
23 See website of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. <https://www.mbras.org.my/contact.html> Accessed 10 March 2021.
24 SOAS MS380053/3.
25 SOAS MS359656/1 – Malayan Police Magazine, p. 167.
26 The excerpt literally translates as: ‘If this book is read by children with great enjoyment, I would be most satisfied.’
27 SOAS MS380053/3 – Malayan Police Magazine, p. 173 Xmas, 1956.
28 SOAS MS359656/1 – Gerald Hawkins, Mr. Moore’s Service to Malaya.
29 National Archives of Malaysia 1957/0510074W – A.W. Hamilton, Report on pilgrimage conditions 1927.
30 SOAS MS359656/1 – ‘The meaning of the word “Haji”’. Young Malayans (226), p. 50.
31 Sarah Taleb Shardlow, pers. comm., 19 October 2020. Sarah Shardlow is Hamilton’s great-granddaughter, through his daughter Noresah who passed away in 2014 in Singapore at the age of 89. I am most grateful to Juffri Supa’at of the National Library Board, Singapore, for alerting me to the existence of Hamilton’s family in Singapore.
32 The inscription translates as: ‘Presented to Nor and family, with best wishes from Muhamad Zain, new year 1949’. The book given to Noresah is now in the possession of Sarah Shardlow and her mother (Noresah’s daughter), Sharifah Fauziyah Syed Hussain Alkaff, aged 74.
33 British Library General Reference Collection 12911.aa.3., UIN: BLL01001552054.
34 For more information on Stirling, see ‘Shadows on a Malayan screen’ (Straits Times Annual, 1 January Citation1967, pp. 80–81) and B. Forrest (Citation2018).
35 It is interesting to note the parallels between Hamilton and Stirling. Both had interests outside their official roles – Hamilton in translating and Stirling in drawing and sketching. Like Hamilton, Stirling too contributed to the Journal of the Straits/Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, contributing six articles between 1921 and 1926. However, unlike Hamilton who focused on the Malays, Stirling wrote about the Chinese, due to his involvement in the Chinese Protectorate in Singapore.
36 In 1935, two collaborated books by Hamilton and Stirling were presented to Queen Mary. The Malaya Tribune (Citation1935b: 10) reported that ‘Her Majesty The Queen has honoured Mr. A.W. Hamilton and Mr. William Stirling by accepting copies of the Malay Sonnets (Pantun Melayu) and the Malay version of Omar Khayyam’.
37 This edition is not a bilingual publication, but determining the source text is relatively easy as each Malay translation appears with the title of the English nursery rhyme.
38 The 1939 translation was advertised (SFP Citation1939: 5, Citation1940b: 7). For a review of the book, see SFP (Citation1940a: 4).
39 SOAS MS380053/3 – Obituary: A.W. ‘Haji’ Hamilton 1887–1967, ‘A Memoir’, December 1967, p. 36.
40 See Exhibitions. National Library, Singapore. <https://exhibitions.nlb.gov.sg/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/fromthestacks/> Accessed 1 August 2020.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Haslina Haroon
Haslina Haroon is Associate Professor in Translation Studies at the Translation Studies and Interpreting Section of the School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang. Her research interests include literary translation and translation history. Email: [email protected]