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Resettling The People Into New Villages Under The Briggs Plan
The photograph shows a group of men loading goods and themselves into a lorry. They are being moved from their homes to 'New Villages' as part of the British Government anti-terrorist plan put in place by Lieutenant General Sir Harold Briggs, Director of Operations, between 1949 and 1952. These men were lucky as they had transport, but some of those resettled who did not have too far to go, had to walk to their new village homes.
There were 41 New Villages in Kinta District alone. They were of quite different sizes and population but generally the inhabitants numbered in the thousands. For example, Kampong Simee had 4,179 villagers in 1952 which rose to 5,978 by 1959verall9. THe populations continued to increase and by 1970 there was around a further 30% increase. A full table of Kinta villages and their populations is in the e-Book below. This is taken from the book "Beyond the Tin Mines", a copy of which is in our library. In Malaya overall, in 1954, there were480 New Villages with a total population of 572,917. 36.1% of these were in Perak
To read more about The Briggs Plan / New Villages, click here.