Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: From the Earliest Times to the Year 2000.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: From the Earliest Times to the Year 2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press in association with the British Academy. Edited by H. C. G. Matthew (1992-1999) and Brian Harrison (2000-2004). Sixty volumes. 61,792pp. 7,500.00 [pounds sterling]/US$13,000.00 per set. ISBN 0-19-861413-6.

A review with special reference to Borneo

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (hereafter ODNB), published in the United Kingdom on Hari Guru (23 September) 2004, prompts the kind of "gee-whizzery" denounced by Lord Chalfont in connection with reports about the Istana Nurul Iman in Bandar Seri Begawan. Whereas the "biggest palace in the world" has 1,800 rooms (give or take a few), 51,490 light bulbs, forty-four staircases, and much else besides, so the "greatest book ever" comprises sixty-two million words, fifty thousand entries, and ten thousand images. It took ten thousand contributors from home and abroad (who require an additional volume costing 60.00 [pounds sterling] just to be listed) twelve years to produce at a cost of 25 million [pounds sterling]. The first editor, H. C. G. Matthew (1992-1999) died in harness and, alas, became an entry in his own dictionary (37: 337-341); his successor, Brian Harrison (2000-2004), was knighted in the New Year 2005 honours list. Matthew (1941-1999) is best known as a biographer of Gladstone. Harrison (b. 1937) is, among other things, author of Drink and the Victorians, a 1971 study of the temperance movement, and Prudent Revolutionaries (1987); he is not to be confused with the eponymous author of South-East Asia: A Short History (1954).

The original Dictionary of National Biography (1885-1900) dates back to the late Victorian era. Supplements were published every decade or so (1901-1996) to keep the story ticking over. A Missing Persons volume appeared in 1993; this one gave recognition, for example, to Raja Sir Vyner Brooke, who had been omitted first time around. The new version re-starts the whole venture from scratch and includes characters from the earliest times down to the last day of the twentieth century (31 December 2000, of course, not 31 December 1999). Only dead people are admitted. Some articles are revised versions of existing biographies, whilst others are completely new.

The printing of the ODNB, which started on 8 January 2004, was done by Butler and Tanner of Frome, Somerset, a company "with an outstanding record of high-quality printing"; it was founded in 1835 by a pharmacist who required labels for his patent medicines and currently employs about 360 people (ODNB Project Update, Spring 2004, page 2). Besides the printed version, there is also an online edition; its search facilities are reported to boost accessibility and usefulness. Lord Briggs, an eminent British historian, describes the dictionary as "probably the biggest contribution to the history of scholarship in the humanities, certainly in my lifetime" and, since he was born in 1921, that is saying something.

The great virtue of a dictionary of this sort is that it gives quick access to all the essential data about any particular person. Conversely, entries tend to be so compressed that they would not satisfy in themselves the needs of the serious researcher. Anyone wanting to know about Tom Harrisson for the first time, for example, would no doubt welcome Judith Heimann's summary of his career here; but sooner or later they would have to read her full-length biography, The Most Offending Soul Alive (1997). Or, to put the matter the other way round, if the summary in the ODNB suffices, why bother writing the full length biography? In general, it is likely that the ODNB will be useful in inverse proportion to the preliminary knowledge of the reader: in other words, whereas a person new to a subject might well be fascinated by the data provided, the informed reader might go away disappointed.

Persons with Borneo links who appear in this dictionary include, amongst others, Tunku Abdul Rahrnan (by Professor A. J. Stockwell), the three Raja Brookes (by Professor R. H. W. Reece), Angela Burdett-Coutts (by Lady Healey), Alexander Dalrymple (by Andrew S. Cook), General A. E. Percival (by Roger T. Steam), Sir Spenser St John (original by G. le G. Norgate, revised by H. C. G. Matthew), and Sir Richard Winstedt (by E. C. G. Barrett, himself a pre-war Assistant Resident in Brunei, revised by an unnamed hand). We are well-served with Foreign Office and Colonial Office mandarins who figure so prominently in academic theses about Borneo, although one or two mightily important personages (in their own estimation) are not included.

Borneo has never been very high on British national priorities. As Dr. Brian Durrans has remarked: "For British servants of the Empire, if Malaya was a backwater, Borneo was truly ultima Thule; the best-connected preferred India." (1) This fact is reflected in this dictionary. If, for example, space could not have been found for Sir Hugh Low and Sir William Treacher, who were amongst the most important figures in the history of British involvement in Borneo and Malaya, what chance would there be for lesser dignitaries? Hence there is no space for the likes of, to name a few at random, C. A. Bampfylde, S. Baring-Gould, Sir George Cator, the various Everetts, E. P. Gueritz, Godfrey Hewett, Peter Leys, Sir Patrick McKerron, A. C. Pearson, E. E. F. Pretty, D. G. Stewart, Sir Roland Yurnbull, and Datuk R. N. Turner. To put the question round the other way, if these people are not good enough to appear in the ODNB, why were some of them good enough to be knighted? Most shameful of all, there is no recognition of M. S. H. McArthur (1872-1934), founder of modern Brunei. Even the best-known, if not the greatest, of British historians of Southeast Asia, Professor D. G. E. Hall, is omitted.

There are some curious inconsistencies: hence we have an entry for Sir Frank Swettenham, but not one for Sir Alexander; we have Sir George Abell, but not Sir Anthony. Furthermore, some persons who are included in the dictionary are there for reasons other than their Bornean connections. This would apply particularly to A. R. Wallace, whose biography is by Charles H. Smith (56: 920-927). Each person's "wealth at death" is given; in Wallace's case it was 5,823 [pounds sterling] 0s 6d, a figure which would need to be multiplied many times over to give its current value.

In conclusion, then, although quite a few persons with Bornean connections have been included in the ODNB, there ought to be a lot more. From the perspective of a Borneo specialist, the dictionary leaves something to be desired. (A.V.M. Horton, 180 Hither Green Lane, Bordesley, Worcestershire B98 9AZ, England)

(1) Durrans, "Introduction", in I. H. N. Evans, Among Primitive Peoples in Borneo (Oxford University Press; Singapore, Oxford, New York; 1990; originally published in 1922), page viii.