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Book Review by kind permission of Chowkidar, the journal of the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia
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When this BACSA book was first published in 1983, under the editorship of
the distinguished ICS officer, 'Robin' McGuire, it sold out
immediately. Part of the charm of this unique book was that much of
its information came from people who served in Burma before
Independence in 1948. There is an anecdotal quality about some of the
entries, which make them more vivid than the usual cemetery record
books. An appeal was made for further information which was
published in 1988 as the Supplement to Register of European Deaths
and Burials. Three years later a programme of cemetery clearance was
begun by the Burmese Government and the first casualty was the
enormous Rangoon Cantonment Cemetery in the centre of the old city,
which was relocated twice, losing most of its tombstones in the process.
Luckily the Cemetery had been fairly extensively recorded before its
demolition, and photographs taken too. Because so many Burial
Registers had been lost or destroyed during World War Two, the
Burma Register is in many cases the only reminder we have of the
considerable number of Europeans, mainly Britons, who lived and died
there. The two books, the original Register and the Supplement have
now been amalgamated, the entries put into alphabetical order and new
illustrations provided, to form the formal record of Burma's colonial past.
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