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The Grave And Story Of William Alfred Bryant
These photographs taken in God’s Little Acre, Batu Gajah, Perak, by Ian Anderson, Ipoh show different views of the grave of William Alfred Bryant. William was born in Alma, Victoria, in 1856. The town began as a gold mining settlement in the rich Ballarat gold fields region. The town was officially surveyed some four years after his birth, in 1860, and was named after the battle of Alma in the Crimean War. Today it remains a small town with a population of about 690.
Destined to be a miner, William married Alice Carolyn in 1877 at Maryborough, Victoria, where he was a “blanket boy” at the Leviathan Reef Mine. He later became underground manager of the Main Leads North Mine, Havelock where his younger brother G F Bryant was manager. Then he moved on as manager of the Glenfine South Mine, Pitfield and the Prentice Freehold and North Prentice Mines in Rutherglen.
In 1907 he took a three year contract to manage Tronoh Mines at Tronoh, Perak. Successful, he took another three year contract, planned to be his last before returning to his wife and family who had remained in Maryborough. At the time Tronoh Mine was the most famous open-cast mine anywhere in the world. Leased to Towkay Foo Choo Choon in 1895 and with European John Addis managing it from 1898, it employed both underground shaft mining and open-cast methods at the same time. During William’s tenure as manager the company reached an all-time record of nearly 3,860 tons of tin ore (in 1911), becoming the largest producer of tinstone in the world. Foo Choo Choon became known locally as the “King of Tin” and, according to the Ballarat Courier, “the richest Chinaman in the world".
However fate stepped in, in 1913, when William was seriously injured in a blasting accident at the mine, suffered a ruptured liver and passed away in the Batu Gajah hospital on 15 May 1913.
William left behind his Last Will and Testament locally and in it he appointed two executors, his wife in Australia and “William Smit who is Engineer in charge of the Dredger at Tronoh Mines Ltd” as his local representative. This appears to have caused some confusion for according to the local Maryborough newspaper who reported his demise, William’s body was to have been embalmed and returned to his family for burial. But William Smit, who was tasked in the Will to use William’s local funds to cover funeral expenses, did his duty and arranged the Batu Gajah funeral. The whereabouts of William’s remains were therefore unknown to the family.
Consequently it was only this year (2010) that ipohWorld, when asked to investigate, were able to confirm to William’s great grandson (our donor) that William’s grave was indeed in Batu Gajah. For the family the mystery is solved at last.
To read about Tronoh Mine, click here.
To read about Towkay Foo Choo Choon, click here.
To read about the annual remembrance ceremony at God’s Little Acre, click here.