Pandaw Magazine

served the people rather than subjugating their
interests to the needs of palace power games.
Trade flowed freely and this industrious race
prospered. Burma rapidly grew to become one of the
richest lands in Asia. Its new capital Rangoon became
known as the ‘Pearl of the Orient’.
For the following sixty years till the Japanese
invasion of 1942 the story of Burma, and her rise to
economic supremacy in Asia, is intertwined with the
operations and activities of the Irrawaddy Flotilla
Company. Crafty Scots quickly realised that Burma was
predominantly a land of rivers, and, even with the
completion of roads and railways, the river remained
key to the riches of Burma.
By the 1920s the IF fleet consisted of over 600
vessels from the magnificent Siam Class (the same
length as the height of the Shwedagon Pagoda in
Rangoon), to pilot craft and tug boats. In a normal year
the company carried nearly nine million passengers
without loss of life and 1.25 million tons of cargo.
Irrawaddy vessels tended to have side-paddles and
would tow two flats, each lashed to either side with a
total beam (width) of 150ft.
The Chindwin river was pioneered in 1875, by
company steam launch. As a result of this expedition
a radical new design was created by Denny to cope
with the shallow conditions. To balance the
displacement, the paddle was situated in the stern, and
the boiler in the bow. This sternwheeler type would
draw only 2.5 feet of water and as the Chindwin valley
was wooded, regular fuelling stations were set up so
vessels were not weighed down with their own fuel.
The larger company ships had Scots masters and
engineers and lascar crews from Chittagong. Lesser
ships had Chittagonian masters. Head office was in
Glasgow but in those pleasant days without
telecommunications regional ‘Assistants’ were
autonomous. There was one telegram a month from
Rangoon to Glasgow consisting of one line only – the
takings.
By the 1910s Burma had become a popular tourist
destination and the Irrawaddy Flotilla were agents for
Thomas Cook, travel agent to the British empire.
Anyone making a tour of Burma would take a steamer
from Rangoon to Mandalay, stopping to see the ruins
at Pagan. Imperial travel literature from this period
was rich and nearly all books mentioned the cruise,
with its comfortable 1st class accommodation. Even
with the advent of the railway, most travellers preferred
the more leisurely river route. Somerset Maugham
travelled by steamer on his 1923 Burma tour, though
there is no evidence that Rudyard Kipling, who
immortalised the flotilla in his famous poem about an
old soldier’s romantic memories, ever actually travelled
with it.
The Prince and Princess of Wales (the future
George V and Queen Mary) made a triumphal
progress up the river in 1906 on the Japan and later
that year the Crown Prince of Siam toured the country
on the Siam named in his honour. Successive viceroys
all toured the country by special steamer, the last being
Lord Mountbatten just after the war on the Mingyi,
currently laid up at Pagan but still with her paddles.
In addition to passenger and cargo transport, the
company operated a fleet of oil barges to carry crude
oil from the Chauk area to the Syriam oil refinery for
the Burmah Oil Company. Paddy was carried for Steel
Brothers on specially designed paddy boats and timber
for the Burmah Bombay Corporation. The company
pamphlet of 1935 describes produce carried:
“ Great bales of cotton, bags of rice, blocks of jade,
lacquerware from Pagan, silk, tamarind, elephants
sometimes, woven mats, maize, jaggery, bullocks,
marble Buddhas, oilcake, tobacco, timber. Upward
bound will be found various imports from Europe,
motor cars, corrugated iron, condensed milk, matches,
aluminium ware, sewing machines, piece goods, soap,
cigarettes, cement and whisky. Every class of goods that
enters or leaves Burma finds its way onto an Irrawaddy
boat.”
In 1934 the Irrawaddy Flotilla & Airways was set
up offering scheduled services and charters - including
an unusual service for devout Buddhists whereby an
aircraft would encircle the Magwe pagoda seven times.
The passing of company steamers was part of
river life. There were even bazaar boats, floating
markets, moving from village to village – a tradition
that lingers to this day. When the company changed
boiler type to a single engine with only one funnel,
there was an outcry amongst the Burmese who,
believing it was unlucky, refused to travel on the new
ships. The company was forced to add a second
dummy funnel. Pregnant women believed it was
particularly auspicious to give birth on a steamer;
many a joke was had over the arrival of a ticketless
infant.
The Irrawaddy is an untameable river – there are
neither locks nor weirs to control the level. In the
monsoon the water level rises 50 feet in
most places and 200 feet in the 1st
Defile. Nor are there charts, for
the sands shift with such
rapidity that they would be
out of date before the ink
is dry.
But the company
operated its fleet safely
and efficiently through
the experience of her
masters and pilots and a
clever and inexpensive
system of bamboo marker
buoys. Buoy Boats in charge
of beats constantly checked and