Harold Cheeseman

IN MY opinion, there was more to it than simply naming the new hall at Westlands School after the retired Director of Education, Harold Ambrose Robinson Cheeseman (b.1890, d.1961). The connection between Cheeseman and Westlands School went far deeper than just the hall, as I will reveal in a later blog story.

In case anybody suggests that I have a fixation about Cheeseman in this Westlands School blog, perhaps I should explain that the influence of the former Malayan Director of Education loomed large in the annals of Education of this country. He wasn't just a Director of Education, or in his younger days, arriving at Penang Free School as an assistant master on an initial three-year contract, an Inspector of Schools in Penang or Chief Inspector of Schools who travelled all over British Malaya and the Straits Settlements.

There were two phases in Cheeseman's distinguished career in the Far East. The second phase was when he was an administrator in the Malayan civil service, beginning with his appointment as the Inspector of Schools in Penang. The first phase started as he arrived in Penang, fresh-faced and carefree as an 18-year-old lad, looking for adventure of sorts, no doubt.

Unlike the other European masters of his time at the Free School, he didn’t possess any academic degree and wasn’t armed with any professional qualification. But we’ve got to admire the man for his grit and determination because once his value was recognised by the British powers-that-be, he rose to the highest position in Education ever attained by a civilian or public servant.

While at Penang Free School from 1907, he was described by the former headmaster, Ralph Pinhorn, as a man with indefatigable energy. Very much interested in the outdoors and extra-curricular activities, he initiated the Scout movement in Penang Free School and encouraged St Xavier'’s Institution and Anglo-Chinese School (now the Methodist Boys' School) to start theirs too.

Cheeseman was a person most admired among the Scouters and even FC Sands, the Scout Commissioner for Malaya, looked at him with respect. Sands wrote once: “There is a man in Penang of whom I am terrified, and the words of wisdom which I utter will probably not impress him at all. He will probably 'turn and rend' me. However, I have the advantage (a mean one, doubtless) of being able to get the last word, and that gives me courage.”

He also started the Penang Free School Magazine in 1909, a publication which set the trend for other schools in the Straits Settlements and British Malaya to follow. The school magazines were produced periodically and wholly owned by the boys. By the way, Cheeseman's popular nickname among the schoolboys was, you guessed it right, “Orang Keju.” It was all in good fun but nobody else would have dared call him that except the boys he had taught.

During the first phase from 1907 till 1922, Cheeseman was:

• Employed initially as Assistant Master at Penang Free School on a three-year contract (1907);
• Appointed to command both the Penang Free School Cadets (from 1907) and Scouts (from 1915);
• Elected Secretary and treasurer of the Penang Football League (1912);
• Elected Vice-president of the Penang Literary Society (1915);
• Made Second Lieutenant of the Chinese Company (D Company) of the Penang Volunteer Corps (1916);
• Elected Vice-president of the Penang Schoolmasters' Athletics Association (1916); 
• Appointed Headmaster of Northam Road Government English School (Aug 1922);
• Considered the catalyst that set up The Old Frees' Association (Oct 1922).

Cheeseman was assimilated into the Straits Settlements civil service with the taking over of Penang Free School by the Government in Jan 1920. Subsequently, when he was transferred out from Penang Free School in Aug 1922, he was appointed as the first headmaster of the new Northam Road Government English School. He was at the helm of this new school for barely a few months before his abilities then taking him into the administrative side of education in which he remained for the next 41 years.

“In 1923, he became Inspector of Schools in Penang, and seven years later was the first Superintendent of Education in Johore, a new post which had been created in an enlightened State which desired to be as rich in education as it was in rubber,” according to a story in The Straits Times of 10th Dec 1948 to report his retirement. [Note: It was not seven years, as mistakenly reported by the newspaper, but five years between his appointments as Inspector of Schools Penang and Superintendent of Education Johore.]

From 1923 till the onset of the Japanese Occupation, Cheeseman was:

• Appointed Inspector of Schools in Penang (Jan 1923);
• Appointed Commissioner of the Boy Scouts in the Settlement of Penang (June 1923);
• Made Fellow of the Royal Colonial Institute (Nov 1923);
• Appointed a member of the Board of Examiners in Languages (for Malay) for Penang (Jun 1923);
• Elected as Committee Member of the Penang Library (Mar 1924);
• Appointed Unofficial Trustee of Penang Free School (Mar 1924);
• Appointed Supervisor of Education, Johore (Mar 1928);
• Appointed Inspector of Schools, Singapore and Labuan (Apr 1934);
• Appointed Chief Inspector of Schools, Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States (Jun 1937);
• Appointed Deputy Director of Education, Malaya (Sep 1938);
• Elected President of the Singapore Rotary Club (July 1941).

At the time of the Japanese invasion of Malaya in Dec 1941, Cheeseman was already the Deputy Director of Education. When he was interned at the Changi Gaol and Sime Road Camp in Singapore, he organised lectures and camp schools for the adult interns and their children, numbering around 3,000 in all, at what was loosely referred to as the Changi University until the purge of the Double Tenth incident of 10th Oct 1943 put a stop to them. [Read a little about Cheeseman’s experience during his internment here.]

After the surrender of Japan in September 1945, Cheeseman resumed his work in the Education Department and soon afterwards, he was elevated to the post of Director of Education of the Malayan Union and later, the Federation of Malaya. He was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the King’s New Year Honours List of 1947. He retired in Dec 1948 and settled down in Kent, England. Cheeseman died in the town of Ramsgate in Nov 1961, aged 71.

© Quah Seng Sun 2018