Papers of W.P. Winston

Papers relating to service with the Public Works Department, Malaya,1937-1959; including war service in the Indian Engineers, 1942-1945, officediaries, 1946-1959, and cine-films of PWD road building and Merdeka celebrations.

William Peter Winston (fl 1914-1985) joined the Colonial Service in 1937 andwas posted to the Public Works Department of Pontian and then to Johore Bahru,Malaya. He served in Johore Nahru as Engineer-in-Charge until the Japaneseoccupation of Malaya in 1942. For the rest of the war he served in, and latercommanded, 151 Indian Railway Construction Company I. E. rising by 1945 to therank of Acting Major; the company was principally employed on the constructionof the Rangapahar Base in Assam. After the war he transferred to the Britishmilitary administration of Malaya. After Malayan independence in 1957 heremained as State Engineer for Kedah and Perlis. In 1959 he married Dr. ThoraOehlers and shortly afterwards retired from the Colonial Service.

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Collection level description created by Paul Davidson, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House.

Listed as no. 744 in Manuscript Collections in Rhodes House Library Oxford,Accessions 1978-1994 (Oxford, Bodleian Library, 1996). A handlist is also available in the library reading room.

No reproduction or publication of personal papers without permission. Contact the library in the first instance.

Certificate of the Technical Association of Malaya, 1957; letter of appointment as Councillor of State, Kedah, 1956; citations and correspondence relating to Kedah medals, 1958-1960; Malayan proclamation of independence, 1957 (ref. MSS. Ind. Ocn. t. 9); three letters home, 1942, giving an account of the Japanese invasion of Malaya and his subsequent escape (ref. MSS. Ind. Ocn. s. 122)