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Mr A E Walker - Murdered By Communist Terrorists
The following originally appeared in the July 1948 edition of 'The Planter', the magazine of the Incorporated Society of Planters, under the heading 'Obituaries'.
“'Wally' Walker was a well known and most popular planter, and his brutal murder at the hands of gangsters in his office at Elphil Estate, Sungai Siput, came as a stunning shock.
Born in February, 1901, the second son of the late Captain and Mrs. Walker of Rogermoor, Moffat, Scotland, “Wally” started life as a farmer, but after a few years came out to Malaya, and was an assistant on Elphil Estate until 1931, when he was “axed”. Between 1935 and 1938 he worked with the London Asiatic Rubber & Produce Co. in Burma, and was then transferred to Malaya as manager on Telemong Estate, Karak, Pahang, where he was until interned by the Japanese.
In Telemong Estate, Karak, Pahang and Sime Road Camps, “Wally” was always to the fore when there was any work to be done, for he was one of the small band of original “gardeners” and always ready and willing to help a pal not so gifted in the art of existing. He stuck to his unpleasant job of serving food until he was transferred and was never known to complain.
His many friends deeply sympathise with his widow in her tragic loss."
The murder of Mr A E Walker by Communist insurgents was one of three that took place on 16 June 1948. He was the Manager of the Elphil Estate, Sungei Siput. His assistant manager, Ian Christian, was also killed in the same attack. A third planter, J M Allison, was also murdered that same day. It was the murder of these three planters that caused the government to declare a state of emergency that lasted from 1948 to 1960. It was called the Malayan Emergency.
An annual memorial service takes place in "God's Little Acre" cemetery in Batu Gajah in memory of all those who died in this Emergency.
Ipoh Remembered advises"
On the same day in June, 1948 that certain opponents of the colonial regime killed the three European planters, they also killed two other men, both Chinese.
One was killed in Johore, on an estate where his workers had been on strike for better wages. The strike had just been put down by the police. The murdered man had been a member of the Kuomintang.
The other was killed in the Taiping area.
The murders of these two Chinese men came after eleven other Chinese men had been killed across Malaya since the beginning of May, 1948.
As for Elphil Estate: Before Wally Walker was killed, his workers, too, had been on strike for better wages and working conditions. Their strike had recently been ended.
To see photographs of the first God's Little Acre Ceremony in 1980, click here.
To read more about John Allison, click here.
To read more about Ian Christian, click here.