Remembering another Brooke

THE news of the recent death of James Bertram Lionel Brooke in Scotland on May 27 came as a shock to all those who had met him for the first time in Kuching six years ago. The occasion was the exhibition with the theme ‘Remembering Anthony’ organised by the State Library.

I will call him Lionel throughout this article. He was the only son of the late Anthony Brooke, once the Rajah Muda of Sarawak and an heir to the Raj.

On behalf of those of us who have come to know Lionel’s son, Jason, a frequent visitor to Sarawak and Secretary of the Brooke Heritage Trust, I would like to convey our heartfelt and sincere condolences to him and his relatives. Our thoughts are with them during their bereavement.

Anthony Brooke, appointed Rajah Muda in 1939 by his uncle the Third Rajah of Sarawak, Sir Charles Vyner Brooke, would have become our ruler had Fate not been so cruel. The Raj suddenly came to an end after 100 years. Blame the Japanese invasion and occupation (1941 to 1945) and the decision of his uncle, Vyner Brooke, to cede Sarawak to the British Crown as a colony in 1946.

As a small child at the time of this happening, Lionel knew little about Sarawak but was aware only of the family connection and, perhaps, a vague idea of the possibility of becoming a Rajah on one fine day. But to the historians, this change of political status of Sarawak was a particularly cruel blow to him because he would have inherited the Raj after his father’s death, assuming that the Raj had continued to exist.

According to the Will of 1867 drawn up by his great