Ipoh World

This photograph is of the First Principal of Anderson School, Ipoh, Lieutenant Colonel John Howard Tyte who during the First World War (we believe) was Commanding Officer of the Malay States Volunteer Rifles, MSVR. Today these volunteers are remenbered by the Malayan Volunteers Group. He was Principal through 1909 and 1910.

Previously the Senior Assistant of Victoria Institution, Kuala Lumpur, when Colonel Tyte came to Ipoh he brought with him one member of his Kuala Lumpur staff and 5 former pupils from his old school. A keen sportsman who had represented Selangor in both football and hockey and quickly introduced both sports to his new school in Ipoh.

However, with the rubber boom in 1910 he discovered that he could earn three times his teaching salary as a planter and left the school for pastures new. He was followed not long after by his assistant, Mr E E Smith, for the same reason. Mr R J Bartlett (from the Straits Settlement) then took on the role of Headmaster.

Ipoh Remembered (one of our Blog readers) shared the following about Tyte:

His wife Edie was a delight and a long-time Malayan: her father had come out even before the Treaty of Pangkor. She and John returned Home in the late 1920s. He lived for another two or three decades. She made it into the 1960s.

During the war, he was at various times second in command and then acting commandant – involved first as Lt. Tyte; then as Capt. Tyte; then as Maj. Tyte; and finally as Lt. Col. Tyte – but when he was at the Anderson School, he was still only Mr. Tyte. [Hence, Ipoh Remembered says that the picture shown here may have been taken before Tyte came to Ipoh]

Tyte left the Anderson School after a year or two. He was tempted away by Edward Carey of "Carey Island" fame. In fact, Carey Island is where he went – but only as a manager, not as a co-owner, plus he returned to government service within a few years, so it's not true that he made a fortune as a planter. As for the war: Many others in the Malay States Volunteer Rifles went off to serve, including Tyte's friend, Trilby Hubback; and others from Carey Island; and other teachers from Anderson School – but John did not. To be clear: he did volunteer for service. His application to serve was rejected not because he was unfit but because the authorities decided that it was more important for him to remain in Malaya.

The same thing happened to a number of other Ipoh characters: Tom Windeatt and Archie Glenister of Osborne & Chappel; Fergie Ferguson, then the young manager of a rubber estate in Chemor, not yet the proprietor of Changkat Kinding Estate; Frank Physick at the Chamber of Commerce; Tom Hinch, the head-master at ACS and commandant of the school's Cadet Corps; Nevill Stevens, a planter who later became a clergyman; plus an assortment of important lawyers, including Harold Huntsman at Maxwell & Kenion, Ash Hope, plus our old friend Joseph Dunford Wood. They all volunteered to go but were told to stay put. (Incidentally, Eric Maxwell had retired to England by this time but he nevertheless went off to serve in France – and survived.)

To read more about Anderson School, Ipoh, click here.

To read about the book ‘Journey of the Andersonians - Who's Who ’ a limited edition history of the school, click here.

To read about the Malayan Volunteers Group, click here.