William Kellie Smith (photo credit: Ipoh City)

 

Many of the 'residents' in the British Cemetery have life stories which span the globe. Some are armed forces personnel, some local families with foreign connections, and some are individuals whose lives were far from the peaceful trees and paths of the British Cemetery, it being pure chance that they died and were buried in Lisbon. The life I will examine here belongs to this latter group.

 

In Section C4 (Pead reference: C4.113) lies the mortal remains of William Kellie Smith who died in 1926. The Burial Register records the following details:

 

Kellie Smith, William aged 55, proprietor, British subject, Native of Scotland, Married, Died Avenida Palace Hotel December 11 [1926]. Buried December 13 [1926] Charles Dobson, Chaplain.

 

This part of the 1892-1944 Burial Register has its challenges. First, some pages in the copy we hold are out of order but this is probably due to an error when the copy pages were bound. It is also in a range of years when register numbers were not recorded for each and every burial as they were before and after. Hence, attempts were made in the past to assess the burial number for this burial. As there is doubt, because it has been realised that Smith's burial record was written after another person whose burial was before Smith's, I have chosen in the survey to not record a burial register number against his grave record. So he is simply in Pead Reference C4.113.

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His headstone is a little more forthcoming:

 

IN AFFECTIONATE MEMORY

OF

WILLIAM KELLIE SMITH

WHO WAS BORN AT ELGIN, SCOTLAND ON MARCH 1ST 1870

AND WHO SPENT THIRTY SEVEN YEARS

OF HIS LIFE IN THE FEDERATED MALAY STATES

AND DIED AT LISBON DECEMBER 11TH 1926

AGED 56 YEARS.

" AT REST "

 

 

 

It records his presumed place and date of birth in Scotland, and his many years in the Malay States as they were called then.

 

So a starting point is his birth record. This I found on Scotland's People and his birth certificate shows the following information:

 

Name and Surname: William Smith

When and Where Born: 1870 March 1st 11hr 40m a.m. Easter Kellas Dallas {Dallas is the parish}

Sex: M {male}

Name, Surname & Rank or Profession of Father: William Smith, Farmer

Name, and Maiden Name of Mother: Helen Smith, M.S. Kellie

Date and Place of Marriage: 1866 June 28, Lauchlan Wells, Parish of Alves.

Informant: Wm. Smith Father (present)

When and Where Registered: 1870 March 16th At Dallas, James Young, Registrar.

 

 

William came later to use the middle name Kellie. It was a common naming tradition to either add the mother's maiden name to that of a child as a forename at birth, or by personal adoption of the name by the child in later life. Often this was because the mother’s family had money or connections but in this case I cannot tell. Both Alves and Dallas were near to Elgin, hence the headstone reference to that place.

 

Easter Kellas (as with Wester Kellas) just refer to East and West. Obviously William lived initially on his father's farm. Strangely, the most notable fact about Kellas is that the kellas cat is named after it.

 

In the 1871 Census for Scotland,  William is recorded as 1 year old and living in Dallas with his father William ( a Farmer, aged 33, employing 5 labourers of 135 acres arable land), his mother Helen, aged 29, and two brothers: Alexander ( 3 ) and James ( 2 ), plus seven servants. In the 1881 Census his, and his parent's address, was 21 Academy Street, Elgin, Moray. His father , now 43 years old, was a Land Surveyor, however the three former sons were still unmarried. By 1881 an additional son, Henry, and daughters Eveline, Ella, and Caroline had been born. William is now recorded as a Scholar, so he was attending school. There are no Census records for the son William after 1881, so William set out on his future adventures between 1881 and 1891; most likely around the latter year as he would have been 21 years old on 1st March 1891, and the census was not taken in Scotland until 5th April that year. So it is a good guess that young William reached his majority and headed off at the first opportunity.

 

It may be that William Smith, the father of our William, gave him the funds to make a start on his own. This might have been the case because many fathers often gave money to children long before their death, but then left no bequest in their wills. William Smith senior did not mention his son by name in his will in 1902, and the only provision for all his children was in the event of his wife Helen's death. In the 1915 will of Helen Smith, she leaves everything to her daughter Ella Smith. William Kellie Smith (William Smith junior) concurred with this in writing and his wife Mrs. Agnes William Kellie Smith was a witness to the will. So there was no animosity from William junior to the residual estate not coming, in part, to him. This could be that by 1915 he was wealthy in his own right, but also it may be that he had already received, in effect, an inheritance before his father died, perhaps when he was 21 years old.

 

Whatever happened, he set sail for the far east and Malaya. Emigration to the Straits Settlements (now Malaysia) was being actively encouraged from the later 1880s  and the Government there was subsidising the British India steamers for migrants to come to Malaya. This may be how William Smith found a way to go at such a young age, even if his father did not fund his trip. It appears his first destination was Batu Gajah in Perak, Malaya.

 

At some point in the 1890's, William met Charles Alma Baker and joined in this gentleman's surveying business, no doubt using his engineering skills on government contracts for road construction and forest clearance in Perak. This gained William great profits.

 

He then formed his own company, William Smith, Civil Engineers, Architects and Contractors. In 1896, he won the contract to supply ballast for the Perak Railway. However the railway project was soon after abandoned. Next he tried coffee growing, but the market crashed owing to the competition from Brazil. Having had such poor fortune with these two enterprises, Willam tried a rubber plantation, replacing the coffee, and he tried his hand at tin mining. The pneumatic tyre had been invented by John Boyd Dunlop in 1887, so the future seemed bright for rubber. The newly recreated rubber plantation was named the  Kinta Kellas Estate, and the mining company, the Kinta Kellas Tin Dredging Company, both incorporating the place "Easter Kellas' where William had been born.

 

In 1903, Smith was in England because on 25th March that year he married Agnes William Smith, the daughter of the Cotton Merchant, Anthony Gordon Smith. The marriage took place in St. James Church, Paddington, in London. William was 33 years old and Agnes 25 years. Both were single. William is recorded as a Civil Engineer whose abode was Longmorn, Morayshire, and Agnes's as 3 Kensington Garden Square.

 

Agnes was baptised at St. Mary's Wallasey, Cheshire on 27th February 1878 and, at the time, the family lived in Liscard. Her father died in 1898 with a sizable estate of £135,569 19s 3d. So Agnes, although she had siblings, was not poor in any way.