Maxwell Hall
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John Maxwell Hall (7 October 1884 – 30 July 1966), known most commonly as Maxwell Hall, was a British
colonial administrator Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
, judge and
author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
who lived in and wrote about North Borneo (now
Sabah Sabah () is a state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah borders the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and the North Kalimantan province of Indonesia to the south. The Federal Territory o ...
).


Early life and career

Hall was born at Kempshot, near Montego Bay,
Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
, on 7 October 1884, the son of Maxwell Hall and Agnes Gertrude Tullis. Hall was appointed West Coast Resident, North Borneo, in 1931. Before
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
and the Japanese invasion of Borneo, Maxwell Hall was a senior judge. Immediately after the war he was the Chief Advocate at some of the
war crimes trials A war crimes trial is the trial of persons charged with criminal violation of the laws and customs of war and related principles of international law committed during armed conflict. History The trial of Peter von Hagenbach by an ad hoc tribu ...
held at
Labuan Labuan (), officially the Federal Territory of Labuan ( ms, Wilayah Persekutuan Labuan), is a Federal Territory of Malaysia. Its territory includes and six smaller islands, off the coast of the state of Sabah in East Malaysia. Labuan's capita ...
(holding the rank of Lieutenant Colonel) and was attached to BBCAU, the British Borneo Civil Affairs Unit which was responsible for the running of North Borneo and other territories after the handover from Australian military control.


A description by K. G. Tregonning

In his 1960 book ''North Borneo'', K. G. Tregonning described Maxwell Hall as
J. Maxwell Hall, a retired senior officer of the
Chartered Company A chartered company is an association with investors or shareholders that is incorporated and granted rights (often exclusive rights) by royal charter (or similar instrument of government) for the purpose of trade, exploration, and/or coloni ...
... one of the very few elderly Englishmen living in the Colony ... the grand old man of the territory.
He lives in a two-storied wooden house, sparsely furnished, as befits his Spartan physique, the owner of some fifty acres of land. On this he has built a half dozen homes, which he rents, with five acres or so of land, to Chinese market gardeners ... He lives as a South-East Asian squire, in solitary contentment: but instead of becoming, after fifty years' service in North Borneo, the grand old man of reminiscences ... this grizzled old live-wire lives vigorously for the present and the future. He is perhaps one of the most wide-awake and pertinent observers of the North Borneo of today whom it was my privilege to meet.
He has written well of the past, in several hard-to-secure books published locally, for he has an historian's bent, and he has contributed numerous articles ... He is writing yet another tale, the history of Labuan. But all this is relaxation; for he is no ivory tower writer, and it is the problems and the possibilities of the present that interest his wide-ranging curiosity and evoke his keenest comments.''North Borneo'' K. G. Tregonning, 1960, 72-3
Several of Maxwell Hall's books have been reprinted, most recently ''Labuan Story: Memoirs of a Small Island near the Coast of North Borneo'' in 2008.


Selected works by Maxwell Hall

* 1929 revised S.S. Cookson's ''The Ordinances of the State of North Borneo, 1881-1915'' (revised again by C.F.C. Macaskie in 1937) * 1949 ''Kinabalu Guerrillas: An account of the Double Tenth 1943'' Kuching: The Sarawak Press. Relates the history of the Japanese occupation of Borneo and the Jesselton Revolt. Contains information about the civil resistance to Japanese occupation, the reactions of the ethnic peoples and their relationship to the Japanese, and includes a few graphic sketches, including the Petagas cemetery which is now known as the Petagas War Memorial. The front cover a watercolour painting of
Mount Kinabalu Mount Kinabalu ( ms, Gunung Kinabalu, Dusun: ''Gayo Ngaran or Nulu Nabalu'') is the highest mountain in Borneo and Malaysia. With an elevation of , it is third-highest peak of an island on Earth, and 20th most prominent mountain in the worl ...
by
Simon C. Yew Datuk Simon Chong Yew MBE (9 April 1898 – 1983), born Yew Siu Chang, was an important figure in the development of Scouting in the Malaysian state of Sabah in Borneo. He was also an accomplished artist. Life Yew was born in Fuzhou, China in ...
. Reprinted by the Borneo Literature Bureau several times in the 1960s. * 1950 ''Makan Siap: Table Tales of North Borneo'' Labuan: Foo Tong Chai, Capitol (also a 1951 Singapore Jitts & Co. edition) Contains twenty-four sketches and stories. * 1954 Prepared a seventh supplemental volume to G. Bannerman Kellager, ''Laws of North Borneo, in force on the 30th June 1953, Revised edition, 1954'' entitled ''Supplement to the Revised Edition'' and containing the Ordinances and subsidiary legislation enacted between July 1953 and the last day of December 1954 * 1955 "Musah of Paitan River" ''North Borneo and Sabah Times''. Recounts the history leading up to Musah's rebellion against the government in 1908 and the years of fighting afterwards. * 1956 "The old fort at Kinarut in Sabah: a relic of three hundred years ago" ''Malayan Historical Journal'' 3:43–49. Recounts the history of a fort at Kinarut and discusses its name. * 1958 ''Labuan Story: Memoirs of a Small Island near the Coast of North Borneo'' Jesselton, North Borneo: Chung Nam. Front cover a watercolour painting of junks by
Simon C. Yew Datuk Simon Chong Yew MBE (9 April 1898 – 1983), born Yew Siu Chang, was an important figure in the development of Scouting in the Malaysian state of Sabah in Borneo. He was also an accomplished artist. Life Yew was born in Fuzhou, China in ...
. Reprinted by Silverfish Books in 2008.


References


Bibliography

*Doolittle, Amity, 2003, "Colliding discourses: Western land laws and native customary rights in North Borneo, 1881-1918" ''Journal of Southeast Asian Studies'' vol 34,


External links


Bonham's sale of some of Maxwell Hall's manuscripts and booksMaxwell Hall at War Crimes TrialsMaxwell Hall at War Crimes Trials
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Maxwell 20th-century British writers People from Montego Bay North Borneo Chartered Company administrators History of Sabah British Borneo judges