Burma

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Burma (now officially called the Union of Myanmar) was a province of the Bengal Presidency until the establishment of the Burma Office in 1937 after which it was administered separately until independence in 1948.

Contents

Geography

History

The British annexed parts of Burmese territory after their victory in the 1st Burma War. Lower Burma was annexed in 1852 after the 2nd Burma War. In 1862, these territories were designated the minor province of British India, British Burma. After the 3rd Burma War in 1885, Upper Burma was annexed, and the following year, the province of Burma in British India was created, becoming a major province in 1897. This arrangement lasted until 1937, when Burma began to be administered separately by the Burma Office and the Secretary of State for India and Burma. Burma achieved independence from British rule on January 4, 1948.

Military

Also see

Personal accounts

  • The book Old Soldier Sahib by Frank Richards, "an excellent read", is about the early 1900s in India and Burma and is mentioned in this Victorian Wars Forum thread. First published in 1936, a reprint is available to purchase through Amazon.co.uk from the FIBIS Shop. Also available at the British Library
  • Details of the book A Soldier’s Story-From the Khyber Pass to the Jungles of Burma: The Memoir of a British Officer in the Indian Army 1933-1947 by John Archibald Hislop, edited by Penny Kocher 2010. There is a review by Richard Morgan of A Soldier’s Story in FIBIS Journal Number 26 Autumn 2011, page 52. For details of how to access this article, see FIBIS Journals. The review may also be read in this link, along with other reviews. This book may be purchased online from the FIBIS Shop.
  • Joseph Robert Milner describes his time in Burma performing primarily clerical duties for the Army from December 1945 to 1947 from page 17 of this document. He was posted by the British Army to a Unit in Rangoon known as AdvancereforsecSEAC ,or Advanced Reinforcement Section, South East Asia Command ronbaileyscarvings.com

Trek Out of Burma in 1942

Following the Japanese bombing in 1942, half a million refugees attempted to walk to India. Many died.

  • Koi-Hai website
    • Forgotten Frontier by Geoffrey Tyson, first published 1945, may be downloaded as a pdf from the Koi-Hai website. This book is about the Trek and the help provided by the tea planters of Assam assisting people from North Burma into India.
  • Anglo-Burmese Library - transcriptions and report. Also the list of internees.
  • This India List post and this British Raj post are about a young boy, whose family perished in the Trek Out of Burma, who was given into the care of some Gurkhas and raised as a Gurkha. He was subsequently traced, but had died. The India List post mentions Red Cross records in Geneva, probably those of the ICRC Archives
  • This India List post and this India List post are about books about the Trek Out of Burma. Refer also Planet Burma Book World below.
  • The Elephant Man is about the rescue of refugees by Gyles Mackrell , an Assam tea planter. He mounted an operation to save refugees who were trapped by flooded rivers at the border with India using the only means available to get them across - elephants. Includes YouTube film clip from the Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge
  • The story of Sam and Marg Acomb The War period commences page 28. In 1941 the author escaped from Thailand to Rangoon where he joined the Army in Burma Reserve of Officers. In 1942 he trekked for three weeks out of Burma to India. Subsequently he was assigned as Intelligence Officer in Dibrugahr Assam, Deolali, Ceylon and Bangkok(1944) until he was discharged in August 1946. BYU Digital Collections
  • Listen to a radio interview with Felicity Goodall, author of Exodus Burma. news.bbc.co.uk. Today,Tuesday, 13 December 2011. Details of Exodus Burma, the British Escape Through the Jungles of Death 1942 by Felicity Goodall 2011. Available to buy through Amazon.co.uk from the FIBIS Shop
  • Tales of wartime courage revealed Yorkshire Post Wednesday 11 January 2012
  • Exodus from Burma by Krishnan Gurumurthy, aged 9 in 1942. His father was employed in the Burma Railways and was one of the many Indian working in Burma. amitavghosh.com

Railways

Records

British Library

  • Baptisms, Marriages and Burials for Burma are included in the Bengal returns (N/1) up to 1936. Records for 1937 to 1959 are in a separate series N/10 with a single index for Burma BMBs.
  • Burma Gazette IOR/V/11/3406-3694 1875-1952.This publication was one of the Government Gazettes which were the official newspapers of the Government of India and its provincial governments where information, such as appointments, promotions,etc was 'gazetted'.

LDS (Mormon)

The LDS film catalogue has the following entries:

Other

  • From the catalogue of the Centre for Jewish History, New York and available through the American Sephardi Federation:
    • Birth Register Book: Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue Rangoon. Published 1979 In English, available from 1896. In Hebrew, available from 1888
    • Death Register Book: Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue Rangoon. Published 1979. Available from 1888. In Hebrew with Sephardi Script.

FIBIS resources

Extracts from "The Private Letters of William Porter, Gunner, 3rd Batt., Madras Artillery (1826-1857) (Mss Eur. G128, British Library)", including time spent in Burma

Economy and business

The leading British firms in Burma were the Burma Oil Company, which controlled the oil industry, Steel Brothers and Company Limited, which worked in oil, rice and general trading business, the Rangoon Electric Tramway and Supply Company Limited, the Anglo-Burma Tin Company , and the Burma Corporation Limited, which operated the Bawdwin Mines.[1]

The book Electric Traction in the Burmese Capital: A History of the Rangoon Electric Tramway and Supply Company, Limited by Robert P Sechler 1981 is available at the National Tramway Museum, Crich Tramway Village, Derbyshire and Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY, USA

Also refer Twentieth century impressions of Burma: its history, people, commerce, industries, and resources by Arnold Wright in Online books below


References

  1. ↑ Google Books snippet search result from Joint international business ventures in the Union of Burma, page 18 by U. Tun Thin 1959.

External links

  The FIBIS Google Books Library
has books tagged:
Burma

Online Books

Other

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