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Denis Wilmot was the son of Francis Langford Rae and Mary Christina Swords; he never really knew his father, who died on 31st January 1866 when Denis was probably less than a year old, yet he followed his father into the police force. He became a senior police officer and administrator and an amateur anthropologist, based in the Kachin Hills. Some of the information on his family comes from the memoirs of Major Sam Newland DSO, who was a schoolfriend, and later on an army comrade, of Denis's sons.
According to family history Denis married first to a Chinese wife whose name is not recalled, by whom he had a daughter, Beatrice Eunice Rae, who went to live in Brixton, London.
According to his son Bertram's marriage certificate [GROS Statutory Marriages 1892 685/04 0464], Denis Wilmot was at some point a District Superintendent of Police, and we know from the Civil List that he joined the police force on 1st April 1884. Under the heading "Police" the 1895 Thacker's Directory for the Bhamo area shows Rae, D.W. as "Asst. Supt. (Bhamo)". Fifteen hundred years beforehand Bhamo had been Sampanago, the capital of the ancient Shan kingdom of Manmaw, and it was still a major administrative centre.
In the 1913 book A Civil Servant in Burma by Sir Herbert Thirkell White, we glimpse "Mr. D. W. Rae of the Provincial Service, an officer of tried experience in the Kachin Hills", in winter 1897, assisting a Joint Commission of British and Chinese officials whose task was to demarcate the border between Burma and China, and correct an error which in 1893 had led to the Chinese border being established too close to Bhamo; and to the Burmese town of Sima, further to the north, being arbitrarily incorporated into China. The Commission foregathered at Bhamo, where they presumably picked up Denis, then marched due east "through the pleasant hill-station of Sinlumgaba, past terraced rice-fields watered by ingenious irrigation works, over shallow streams". Owing to a deadlock between the two factions the Commission stalled and ended up spending four months camping in tents by a stream at the provisional border, haggling over details and waiting for orders from their governments.
Sinlumgaba must be the place now usually spelled Sinlumkaba or Sinlum Kaba. Burma Under British Rule by John Nesbit shows that Sinlumgaba was about thirty miles east of Bhamo and on or near a road constructed in 1897, and Notes on the Nidification of some Birds from Burma by Major H. H. Harington also places Sinlum-Kaba thirty miles due east of Bhamo, at an altitude of 6,000 feet.
The modern location of Sinlum Kaba is slightly obscure since its name doesn't appear on the maps, but it seems to be the place now usually called Wuteng, in between Sinlum and Sinlumkaji, about twenty miles due east of Bhamo in a strait line, but about thirty by road. Traveling Luck confuses the issue by saying that Sinlum and Sinlumkaba are one and the same, but it actually shows them as a mile or two apart, and both Traveling Luck and True Knowledge list Sinlum, Sinlumkaba and Sinlumkaji as three successive locations and show Wuteng as being at the same coordinates as Sinlumkaba.
Traveling Luck shows: Sinlum Latitude: 24.25°, Longitude: 97.5° Sinlumkaba Latitude: 24.2666667°, Longitude: 97.5166667° Wuteng Latitude: 24.2666667°, Longitude: 97.5166667° Sinlumkaji Latitude: 24.2833333°, Longitude: 97.55°
True Knowledge has: Sinlum 323 miles (520km) north of Ne Pyi Daw, 182 miles (293km) north of Mandalay Sinlumkaba 324 miles (522km) north of Ne Pyi Daw, 184 miles (296km) north of Mandalay Wuteng 324 miles (522km) north of Ne Pyi Daw, 184 miles (296km) north of Mandalay Sinlumkaji 326 miles (525km) north of Ne Pyi Daw, 186 miles (299km) north of Mandalay
It seems clear, therefore, that Sinlumgaba is the place now marked on maps as Wuteng - or, if they are separate places, they are less than half a mile apart. You can see a satellite view of Wuteng at Tegeo.com.
Political Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure by ER Leach, first published in 1959, describes a conflict among the Kachin people of Hpalang, between Bhamo and the Chinese border, which occurred circa 1900 and which was later described to him from collective memory by Kachins living in the area in 1940. [A duwa is a chief, so Ri duwa presumably means "Chief Rae".]
But to return to the Hpalang feud. All were agreed that, with the Lahpai vanquished, the Nmwe ruled as chiefs in Hpalang. At this point the constituent villages appear to have been Nmwe, Laga, Gumjye, Sumnut. These all shared a common numshang (sacred grove). All reports agreed that the Sumnut headman of this period was an aggressive and dominating personality. The Sumnut themselves said that he was the recognised bawmung30 of the whole community, and that the Nmwe chief though harmless enough was only a figurehead. The Maran said that this Sumnut headman was a bandit (damya) who made a living from cattle raids and extorting 'blackmail' (protection money) from the Shan villages in the valley below and that a quarrel finally broke out between the Nmwe and the Sumnut over the disposal of some cattle. Tradition here was at first somewhat bowdlerised for my benefit but the Maran grievance seemed really to be that Maran had themselves purloined, in dubious circumstances, some pack animals belonging to a passing Chinese caravan and that the Sumnut had then seized the animals and sold them over the border, thus making it impossible for the Maran to extort the ransom that had been intended. The Sumnut on the other hand said that the new quarrel was again about a woman. Since the Sumnut were now dama to the Nmwe, the latter were not entitled to dispose of their women to other lineages except by agreement of the Sumnut. The Sumnut wished to maintain the mayu-dama relationship and negotiated for a further marriage, but the Nmwe insultingly refused to accept the bride-price offered. Consequent upon this renewed quarrel between the Nmwe and the Sumnut, the Sumnut appealed to the British for justice and the great Ri duwa (D. W. Rae, the first British Civil Officer, Sinlum) arbitrated the dispute. This part of the story at least is historical. In 1900 D. W. Rae did arbitrate a major Hpalang feud and gave a surprising ruling. He ruled that the Lahpai chiefs should again rule over the upper (western) end of the Hpalang ridge, while the Nmwe chiefs should rule over the lower (eastern) end. I think it is fairly certain that no Kachin could have expected such a 'judgement of Solomon' and that this was the very last sort of decision that anyone wanted. However, today the leaders of the Nmwe and the Sumnut each carefully preserve their respective copies of Ri duwa’s vital judgement. My copy of this intriguing document has not survived but the published record of the affair is given in Appendix II.
Denis Wilmot married again on 4th January 1903 in Bhamo (again, in Burma/Myanmar, not Bengal, despite what the registry entry says) to a twenty-three-year-old girl variously named in the records as Ma Kyin, May Kym or Machin (Ma is an honorific for a young woman: in later life she became Daw Kyin, equivalent to going from Miss to Madam), by whom he already had two children - the eldest of whom, Robert, had been born in February 1900, so probably not long before the judgement in Hpalang. Ma Kyin's father was named Lo Sit Pyun, and according to family memory had Chinese connections and Rory discovered that she was descended from a noble family in Nanking. [FamilySearch] Cecil Bruce Orr, a senior officer in the Burma police, would later describe Denis' and Ma Kyin's son Bertram as Anglo-Karen, meaning that Ma Kyin was Burmese and of the Karen tribe. However, Sam Newland recalls her as being "a Shan woman of great beauty" and the family also remember her to have been Shan. This makes far more sense, given Denis's long association with the Kachin Hills whose inhabitants are mainly either Kachin or Shan. From Customs of the World by RW Marshall, 1912, courtesy of Wikipedia: Shan people: "On festival occasions representations of fabulous or heraldic animals often make their appearance. The Shans are particularly fond of them, and this is a sample of the fearsome deer that dwell in haunted forests." According to burma-all.com "Shan" is what other people in Burma call this tribe, and is derived from a Chinese word for "hill-savage". They call themselves Thai or Tai, meaning "free", are part of the same group as the people of Thailand and are so fiercely independent that many of their villages in Burma have neither chief nor council. Many live in south-west China, where they are called Dai, but Nanking is over a thousand miles away, so if it is true that Ma Kyin was descended from Nanking aristocracy she probably had some non-Tai Chinese blood. I do not know whether Denis married his first wife with all the paperwork or not, but he certainly seems to have tied the knot formally with Ma Kyin. Vivian Rodrigues, whose family were officials in Burma, commented that it was common for senior British officials to take a native woman as a mistress or an unofficial wife, but formally to marry a native woman took "scary bravery". Of course, Denis seems to have sprung from the Irish landed gentry and he probably had that aristocratic sense that the rules were whatever he wanted them to be, but it's greatly to his credit that he wanted the rules to be that his lovely Shan girl was as good as any woman living. Regarding Denis's career, the India List and India Office List for 1905, page 70, lists D.W. Rae as an Extra Assistant Commissioner, 4th Grade, in the Provincial Civil Service. The National Archives at Kew list the following documents: Mr D W Rae to officiate as Deputy Commissioner for about 6 weeks IOR/L/PJ/6/714, File 922 16 Mar 1905 Mr D W Rae to officiate as Deputy Commissioner of Bhamo IOR/L/PJ/6/723, File 1478 4 May 1905 Mr D W Rae to temporarily officiate as Deputy Commissioner IOR/L/PJ/6/728, File 2114 29 Jun 1905 Mr D W Rae, Extra Assistant Commissioner, to officiate as Deputy Commissioner, Bhamo District IOR/L/PJ/6/768, File 2003 14 Jun 1906 Appointment of Messrs D W Rae and W B Tydd to officiate as deputy commissioners of the Bhamo and Ruby Mines districts, Burma IOR/L/PJ/6/828, File 3261 5 Sep 1907 The Agricultural Journal of India of March 1911 includes an article on the culture and agricultural practices of different peoples living in the Kachin Hills, with the citation "Information obtained largely from D. W. Rae, Esq., e.a.c. Assistant Superintendent, Kachin Hill Tracts". Denis evidently had some standing as an amateur anthropologist. A paper called Aspects of Bridewealth and Marriage Stability among the Kachin and Lakher by E. R. Leach refers back to a 1929 article called The Kachin Tribes of Burma by J. S. Carrapiett, who had in turn cited "P. M. R. Leonard, D. W. Rae and W. Scott" on the subject of the Kachin people called the Gauri. We see Denis again in the Civil List, where he is a Superintendent of Police, 3rd Grade, based at Magwe in central Burma as at New Year 1915, and a year later he is in the same job, at the same pay, but in Bhamo. Unfortunately only a few of the Civil Lists for this period are available online but he isn't in the list for July-September 1909, at all, which suggests he only became a Class 1 officer after this date. I would have expected a District Commissioner to be a Class 1 Officer, but perhaps Denis did something else in between 1907 and 1915 - maybe took a sabbatical to pursue his anthropological studies, which would explain why he isn't in the Civil List for 1909. Page 83 of The India Office List for 1917 shows Denis as still a District Superintendent 3rd Grade, although it contains less information than the Civil List would do. Page 145 of The India Office List for 1918 records that "Rae, D.W." of the Indian Police retired on 19th May 1917. Denis Wilmot Rae and Ma Kyin (my great-grandfather and great-grandmother) had the following children: Robert "Bobby" R Rae, born 2nd February 1900 and christened on 4th January 1903 at Bhamo. [FamilySearch] Virginia Monica Rae, born 3rd March 1902 and christened on 4th January 1903 at Bhamo. [FamilySearch] Bertram Langford Denis Rae (my grandfather), born 28th September 1903, christened 14th February 1909 in Maymyo. [FamilySearch] Harry Paul Rae, born 2nd December 1905, christened 14th February 1909 in Maymyo. [FamilySearch] Denis Wilmot Rae, birth date not known for certain but circa 1908. Note the dates: Denis Wilmot and Ma Kyin got married and christened two children they already had, one nearly three, the other ten months old, all on the same day on 4th January 1903 at Bhamo. Later they had two more children, one five, the other three, christened on the same day on 14th February 1909 in Maymyo (now called Pyun U Lin). Their relationship was obviously a stable and long-lasting one, but what do we make of these group ceremonies? My first thought was that when their children were born they lived somewhere in the backwoods that didn't have a registry office or a church (or not one of the right denomination), and so they just sorted out their paperwork, including the technicality of getting married, whenever they happened to hit town. Very likely Denis was in the backwoods in the first place because he was pursuing his anthropological studies. The only problem with this is that Denis was Officiating District Commissioner in Bhamo 1905-1907, and since some of his children were christened in Bhamo in 1903 we can say he was probably there at least from 1903-1907, even if he was in Maymyo in 1909. So why, if the family was living in Bhamo, which clearly had facilities for a christening, did it take five years to get round to christening Bertram? I'm thinking now that Denis and Ma Kyin must have been living apart at this time, maybe because his work took him all round the area too much. Probably Ma Kyin and her children were living out in the countryside, then they came to Bhamo to get married/christened and at the same time Denis got her pregnant with Bertram, who was born just a week short of nine months later. Then she went back into the hills - although they must have liaised later in order for Denis to get her pregnant with Henry - and then later Ma Kyin took the younger children to be baptised in Maymyo, with or without her husband being present. The family seem to have regarded Maymyo as some sort of home-base by 1914, when Samuel Newland started at a boarding school in Maymyo called the Government High School for Europeans, because Sam later wrote that all of the Rae boys were at the school with him, and he first met Bertram there in February 1914. Their sister Virginia attended the Maymyo Convent school. We know from Sam Newland that Denis Wilmot died of cancer in "about 1920 or so". According to family history Denis died in 1919 - a note to this effect was scribbled on a document relating to Francis Langford Rae - and both family memory and Sam's memoirs say that Bertram was unable to go to university because there was now no money to pay his fees. We can be certain however that the date of Denis's death was later than 1919, because an extant shipping list shows that on 12th September 1920 a D.W. Rae, an Inspector of Police aged fifty-five and resident in Burma, arrived in Liverpool having come from Rangoon as a First-Class passenger on a merchant ship called the Martaban. He has a tick in a column for people who intend to be permanently resident in England, but the column has been re-labelled "India" (a term which at that time included Burma). This has to be Denis Wilmot. He was already retired at this point and it would appear that he used his new liberty to visit his son, and perhaps his daughter Beatrice who may have been already in the U.K.. There is a record of Beatrice entering the U.K. in 1932, but she may have been returning from a trip rather than moving here for the first time. Denis cannot have stayed in Britain for long, for the trip between Burma and Britain took around a month and he must have set off again around New Year. A Denis Rae of the right age died on the 2nd of February 1921 in Rangoon [FamilySearch]. Unless Denis's cancer was really fast-acting he had probably been ill for some months, so logic suggests that he made the trip to the U.K. to visit Bertie and maybe-Beatrice because he knew he was dying, and wanted to see his second son and his eldest daughter one last time. Ma Kyin, along with one of her brothers or brothers-in-law, hired the well-known barrister Charles H Campagnac in order to defend her son Bobby from a charge of murder in 1928. The Anglo-Burmese Library's List of Evacuees shows a Ma Kyin being evacuated from Mandalay on 27th March 1942, with a destination c/o Mrs A.G. Alexander, 6 Hardwar Road, Dehra Dun. I do not know when Ma Kyin died but it must have been no earlier than the mid 1950s, because Sam recalls that her son Denis went to live with her after World War Two and Denis's daughter Susan, who was born in 1948, lived with her for a while and remembers her well.
According to burma-all.com "Shan" is what other people in Burma call this tribe, and is derived from a Chinese word for "hill-savage". They call themselves Thai or Tai, meaning "free", are part of the same group as the people of Thailand and are so fiercely independent that many of their villages in Burma have neither chief nor council. Many live in south-west China, where they are called Dai, but Nanking is over a thousand miles away, so if it is true that Ma Kyin was descended from Nanking aristocracy she probably had some non-Tai Chinese blood.
I do not know whether Denis married his first wife with all the paperwork or not, but he certainly seems to have tied the knot formally with Ma Kyin. Vivian Rodrigues, whose family were officials in Burma, commented that it was common for senior British officials to take a native woman as a mistress or an unofficial wife, but formally to marry a native woman took "scary bravery". Of course, Denis seems to have sprung from the Irish landed gentry and he probably had that aristocratic sense that the rules were whatever he wanted them to be, but it's greatly to his credit that he wanted the rules to be that his lovely Shan girl was as good as any woman living.
Regarding Denis's career, the India List and India Office List for 1905, page 70, lists D.W. Rae as an Extra Assistant Commissioner, 4th Grade, in the Provincial Civil Service. The National Archives at Kew list the following documents:
Mr D W Rae to officiate as Deputy Commissioner for about 6 weeks IOR/L/PJ/6/714, File 922 16 Mar 1905
Mr D W Rae to officiate as Deputy Commissioner of Bhamo IOR/L/PJ/6/723, File 1478 4 May 1905
Mr D W Rae to temporarily officiate as Deputy Commissioner IOR/L/PJ/6/728, File 2114 29 Jun 1905
Mr D W Rae, Extra Assistant Commissioner, to officiate as Deputy Commissioner, Bhamo District IOR/L/PJ/6/768, File 2003 14 Jun 1906
Appointment of Messrs D W Rae and W B Tydd to officiate as deputy commissioners of the Bhamo and Ruby Mines districts, Burma IOR/L/PJ/6/828, File 3261 5 Sep 1907
The Agricultural Journal of India of March 1911 includes an article on the culture and agricultural practices of different peoples living in the Kachin Hills, with the citation "Information obtained largely from D. W. Rae, Esq., e.a.c. Assistant Superintendent, Kachin Hill Tracts". Denis evidently had some standing as an amateur anthropologist. A paper called Aspects of Bridewealth and Marriage Stability among the Kachin and Lakher by E. R. Leach refers back to a 1929 article called The Kachin Tribes of Burma by J. S. Carrapiett, who had in turn cited "P. M. R. Leonard, D. W. Rae and W. Scott" on the subject of the Kachin people called the Gauri.
We see Denis again in the Civil List, where he is a Superintendent of Police, 3rd Grade, based at Magwe in central Burma as at New Year 1915, and a year later he is in the same job, at the same pay, but in Bhamo.
Unfortunately only a few of the Civil Lists for this period are available online but he isn't in the list for July-September 1909, at all, which suggests he only became a Class 1 officer after this date. I would have expected a District Commissioner to be a Class 1 Officer, but perhaps Denis did something else in between 1907 and 1915 - maybe took a sabbatical to pursue his anthropological studies, which would explain why he isn't in the Civil List for 1909.
Page 83 of The India Office List for 1917 shows Denis as still a District Superintendent 3rd Grade, although it contains less information than the Civil List would do. Page 145 of The India Office List for 1918 records that "Rae, D.W." of the Indian Police retired on 19th May 1917.
Denis Wilmot Rae and Ma Kyin (my great-grandfather and great-grandmother) had the following children:
Robert "Bobby" R Rae, born 2nd February 1900 and christened on 4th January 1903 at Bhamo. [FamilySearch]
Virginia Monica Rae, born 3rd March 1902 and christened on 4th January 1903 at Bhamo. [FamilySearch]
Bertram Langford Denis Rae (my grandfather), born 28th September 1903, christened 14th February 1909 in Maymyo. [FamilySearch]
Harry Paul Rae, born 2nd December 1905, christened 14th February 1909 in Maymyo. [FamilySearch]
Denis Wilmot Rae, birth date not known for certain but circa 1908.
Note the dates: Denis Wilmot and Ma Kyin got married and christened two children they already had, one nearly three, the other ten months old, all on the same day on 4th January 1903 at Bhamo. Later they had two more children, one five, the other three, christened on the same day on 14th February 1909 in Maymyo (now called Pyun U Lin). Their relationship was obviously a stable and long-lasting one, but what do we make of these group ceremonies? My first thought was that when their children were born they lived somewhere in the backwoods that didn't have a registry office or a church (or not one of the right denomination), and so they just sorted out their paperwork, including the technicality of getting married, whenever they happened to hit town. Very likely Denis was in the backwoods in the first place because he was pursuing his anthropological studies.
The only problem with this is that Denis was Officiating District Commissioner in Bhamo 1905-1907, and since some of his children were christened in Bhamo in 1903 we can say he was probably there at least from 1903-1907, even if he was in Maymyo in 1909. So why, if the family was living in Bhamo, which clearly had facilities for a christening, did it take five years to get round to christening Bertram? I'm thinking now that Denis and Ma Kyin must have been living apart at this time, maybe because his work took him all round the area too much. Probably Ma Kyin and her children were living out in the countryside, then they came to Bhamo to get married/christened and at the same time Denis got her pregnant with Bertram, who was born just a week short of nine months later. Then she went back into the hills - although they must have liaised later in order for Denis to get her pregnant with Henry - and then later Ma Kyin took the younger children to be baptised in Maymyo, with or without her husband being present.
The family seem to have regarded Maymyo as some sort of home-base by 1914, when Samuel Newland started at a boarding school in Maymyo called the Government High School for Europeans, because Sam later wrote that all of the Rae boys were at the school with him, and he first met Bertram there in February 1914. Their sister Virginia attended the Maymyo Convent school.
We know from Sam Newland that Denis Wilmot died of cancer in "about 1920 or so". According to family history Denis died in 1919 - a note to this effect was scribbled on a document relating to Francis Langford Rae - and both family memory and Sam's memoirs say that Bertram was unable to go to university because there was now no money to pay his fees. We can be certain however that the date of Denis's death was later than 1919, because an extant shipping list shows that on 12th September 1920 a D.W. Rae, an Inspector of Police aged fifty-five and resident in Burma, arrived in Liverpool having come from Rangoon as a First-Class passenger on a merchant ship called the Martaban. He has a tick in a column for people who intend to be permanently resident in England, but the column has been re-labelled "India" (a term which at that time included Burma). This has to be Denis Wilmot. He was already retired at this point and it would appear that he used his new liberty to visit his son, and perhaps his daughter Beatrice who may have been already in the U.K.. There is a record of Beatrice entering the U.K. in 1932, but she may have been returning from a trip rather than moving here for the first time.
Denis cannot have stayed in Britain for long, for the trip between Burma and Britain took around a month and he must have set off again around New Year. A Denis Rae of the right age died on the 2nd of February 1921 in Rangoon [FamilySearch]. Unless Denis's cancer was really fast-acting he had probably been ill for some months, so logic suggests that he made the trip to the U.K. to visit Bertie and maybe-Beatrice because he knew he was dying, and wanted to see his second son and his eldest daughter one last time.
Ma Kyin, along with one of her brothers or brothers-in-law, hired the well-known barrister Charles H Campagnac in order to defend her son Bobby from a charge of murder in 1928. The Anglo-Burmese Library's List of Evacuees shows a Ma Kyin being evacuated from Mandalay on 27th March 1942, with a destination c/o Mrs A.G. Alexander, 6 Hardwar Road, Dehra Dun. I do not know when Ma Kyin died but it must have been no earlier than the mid 1950s, because Sam recalls that her son Denis went to live with her after World War Two and Denis's daughter Susan, who was born in 1948, lived with her for a while and remembers her well.
