Yapton & Ford Local History Group

My great uncle, Ernest Reginald Baker (known as Reg to family and friends) was born on 21^st December 1890, in East Dulwich, London. He was one of a family of 6 children, 3 boys and 3 girls, and youngest of these was my grandmother.

He attended High School Dulwich and then went on to attend Battersea Polytechnic from 1906 to 1908 where he studied Civil Engineering. In 1908 he then went north to a pupilage in  Newcastle where he underwent practical training. He worked for a well-known Newcastle Civil Engineer, J .Watt Sandeman. He performed surveying for harbours in the North East, and got involved in borings, foundations of buildings and harbour construction. He worked on the Tyne and Blyth, Whitby and Berwick Harbours.

In July 1914, aged 24, he left Southampton on a ship bound for Singapore, and then on to British North Borneo. He worked in the town of Sandakan for the Public Works Department as an Assistant Engineer, under a Mr Budden. He worked on the construction of main roads, bridges, drains, culverts and sewers. He was also superintendent of construction of a "25 mile range" lighthouse. He applied to and became a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in December 1916.

From passenger records, it would appear that he did 5 year stints in Borneo, after which he would return home for 6 months or so. In the days well before air travel, the trip by sea from Borneo, via Singapore or Japan, back to the UK would have taken 6-7 weeks.

In September 1926, he married Isabella (known as Belle) Hetherington, in Newcastle. I assume, but don’t know for sure, that he had met her many years before when he lived in Newcastle. The family always talked of her as a beautiful and attractive lady. They left for Borneo on a ship from London on 6^th November 1926.

They then proceeded to live the life of expats in Borneo. The family story had been that they left Borneo in a mad rush in January 1942, when the Japanese invaded the island for its oil reserves. However, I have learnt since that this was a rather fanciful story, and in fact they were back in the UK, living in Knutsford, Cheshire, in 1939 where Reg was employed with the Air Ministry as the Resident Engineer at RAF Padgate. To my knowledge, they never returned to Borneo after the war. In the family, we have a couple of items of furniture and some small artefacts from Borneo, that belonged to them. I assume these items adorned the rooms of Sandakan (see below) when they lived there.

I have little knowledge of their time back in the UK. I now know, thanks to the recent help of the Yapton Local History Society, that they purchased a large house in Church Road, Yapton, in 1949, renaming it Sandakan (in remembrance of the town in Borneo), and living there and running it as a guesthouse until the mid 1950s. I also know, from a family address book, that they lived at Oakshott Hanger, Hawkley, Liss, at some time, and perhaps this was after they sold Sandakan.

Belle died in Churt, Surrey, in February 1965. I do remember going to see Reg in the late 1960s when he lived in an apartment in South Harting; I was about 7 or 8 years old. I remember him telling me I would become an engineer, and he was right, for I too read Civil Engineering at University. Reg died in Chichester in March 1975, aged 84 years.

The following are some photos of Reg and Belle in Borneo:

A young Reg relaxing after work in his (as it says on the back) "costume de la nuit….an early attempt" :

Reg with his beloved Lea Francis motor bike in November 1922 :

Belle (shaking hands) and Reg, on her left, meeting some local dignitaries in Jan 1934 :

The Tamparuli Bridge, North Borneo, (which I believe he designed and/or built) in 1938 ^* :

Richard Rose
Aberdeen
March 2017

Minor updates by Richard Rose July 2022