YES, this is a deep history breaking news, thanks to the truth of the. English adage ‘One picture is worth a thousand words’.
Tenom-hailed Veteran trekker Tham Yau Kong can swear that just one century- old picture helped him score his biggest personal historical breakthrough ever – discovering with pin-point accuracy the exact spot where the long lost 1910 Rundum Station or North Borneo’s first Interior District office was built, followed by hundreds killed in the Rundum Rebellion February to April 1915!
Tham said actually the story of famous Murut warrior Ontoros Antanom and the Rundum Rebellion described as ‘a storm of tremendous violence’, was not new to him.
Way back 43 years ago in 1978 a class teacher at St Anthony School, Tenom talked about it but everything stayed abstract until he saw a picture of the old Rundum Station (the first Interior District Office of British North Borneo) at the end of January 2020, published in a book entitled ‘British North Borneo – An Account of its History, Resources and Natives Tribes’, wriiten by British historian and colonial civil servant, Owen Rutter.
“That picture fascinated me and jolted me like a thunderbolt and it really fired up a surge of energy and determination to hunt down the site of the old Rundum Station,” he said.
Armed with the picture, he ventured deep into old Rundum just 10 days ago on Oct 20-21, with a few people who mattered.
And found the exact spot of old Rundum Station he did!
Pile of old bottles, old radio casing
How do we know he has found it for real? Well, everything matched up!
One, its unmistakable undisturbed forested hill at the background which still remains as it was as captured in the picture taken a century ago!
So, the old primeval forest background landscape depicted in Rutter’s old picture matches the current backdrop to the dot because it had remained undisturbed for a century, wow!
Two, a pile of soiled old bottles of all shapes and sizes strewn on the ground, one of which inscribed ‘WATSON Hong Kong’ at the bottom, indicating old human use long ago.
Three, a discarded radio casing among the pile of bottles.
The most iconic reminder of British Empire – Conical Minimax fire extinguisher!
Four, and perhaps the most spectacular hardware find of all – a very unique Minimax conical fire extinguisher which is iconic to the glorious days of the British Empire!
Why? The Minimax conical extinguisher is a direct historical reminder of the era of the first decade of the 1900s when the Rundum Station was built.
Minimax Limited, manufacturer of fire extinguishers, was founded in England in 1903 in Leadenhall Street London.
Very rapidly by 1905, they won the highest award for extinguishers in a St Louis exhibition, Missouri, USA so it became a famous brand name for fire extinguishers.
By 1907, they were suppliers to King Edward Vll for the protection of his motor car, exporting globally to countries like China, India, Argentina, Siam, Tasmania etc and no doubt to North Borneo, even into a place in the middle of nowhere like Rundum.
In England, they were suppliers to the highest established centres of powers and institutions like Westminster Abbey, Windsor Castle, Winchester Cathedral, Oxford and Cambridge universities and even the Tsars of Russia also placed orders.
Minimax Ltd ’s business lasted well over half a century before it was sold to Pyrene Company in 1955 and later to Chubb Security in 1967.
So the Minmax conical fire extinguisher is an epic proof of ancient Rundum’s direct link to the peak era of colonial rule and exploits in the deep interior of Sabah which any local tourist guide can use to plot a really interesting Rundum Station story back to the turn of the 20th century London, the hey days of the British Empire, North Borneo and the 1915 Rundum Rebellion.
Connecting the dots of this historical breakthrough
In short, in this Special Report, you are reading a moment of exciting history in Sabah that has never been told.
Connecting the dots, Tham traced his epic breakthrough back to a Form Four lesson in St Anthony, Tenom, 1978, when an Indian teacher asked; “Anyone of you know anything about the famous warrior Ontoros Antanom in the Rundum Rebellion?”
“None of us could answer because there’s no such accounts in our history books but since then I kept Rundum in mind,” Tham noted.
“When I set up my company TYK Adventure Tours in 2000 I thought about adventure trips to Rundum but access to Rundum that time was too difficult, some say go from Pensiangan, others suggest logging roads, still others suggest two-days’ walk from Kemabong – just too difficult and I iced the adventure idea to Rundum and instead, focussed on the Death March from 2005,” Tham recalled.
‘Never disregard the great history of old Rundum’: Tham
But strange, recent local politics played with the old brand name Rundum with appealing pledges which revived the interest.
During the General Election 2018, Jamawi Jaafar, who contested on a UMNO ticket, pledged a new Rundum Highland for Community Tourism and Agricultural Development, equating it to or even suggesting that it could surpass Kundasang for leisure and food, but Jamawi left out the old Rundum history part.
“But to me, the cool weather and scenic beauty of new Rundum highland is for leisure and culture while old Rundum Station and rebellion story is more important for history and heritage and so how can such a great history be disregarded when the old Rundum should be highlighted and combined with new Rundum for extra value and experience to extend the length of stay to benefit the local communities more,” Tham said.
Yes, a more developed new Rundum still offers a nice sight of untouched forests in the horizon one to two kilometres away.
But old Rundum is picture perfect with untouched primeval old growth forests.
Raising the red flag on intensifying logging application and potential destruction
However, the latest news is of something not so encouraging which pushed Tham to ramp up his hunt for the old Rundum Station and the infamous Rundum Rebellion for conservation reasons.
So he came forward to say he is alarmed by a once distant drum of logging getting louder and louder as logging application is intensifying.
“Mind you the area is full of wildlife also, I am afraid once these last untouched forests are whacked, the Rundum story is finished. This is why I sped up d my hunt to unlock the long lost history of the Rundum Station and rebellion while there is still a window of opportunity to conserve this amazing place,” he said.
“The river, the only river that flows from Sabah to Indonesian Kalimantan is clean and pristine and full of fish but once the forests are whacked it will become another mud flow,” Tham noted.
“Now that we have discovered the incredible, I hope the State Government will see the long term economic future of conservation more than immediate returns and study all applications for logging very carefully to prevent the destruction of a great treasure,” Tham said.
Found – site of the old Rundum station dubbed the first Interior District office of British North Borneo. Note the forested backdrop matches that shown in the old picture (below).
Historian Ower Rutter’s century-old picture which sparked Tham’s successful hunt for the exact site of this old Rundum Station on Oct 20-21 this year.
Note the inscription, ‘WATSON hong Kong’, at the base of this bottle suggesting the olf link between North Borneo and Hong Kong reached far flung Rundum.
Cache of old bottles found at the old Rundum Station grounds.
Tham showing his spectular find of the most iconic artefact from the heydays of the British empire – a unique conical minimax fire extinguisher manufactured in London from 1903 to 1955. It was found on October 21 at the grounds of the old Rundum Station dubbed the first Interior District Office of North Borneo.
Pristine river flowing past old Rundum Station site heading towards Indonesia’s Kalimantan.
