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A.J.N. Richards photographs in the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and Tun Jugah Foundation Libraries.

Article Excerpt
Among the materials presented by the Richards family to Sarawak is an extensive collection of photographs and negatives, the great majority taken by the late A.J.N. Richards himself during his years as an administrative officer in Sarawak, from September 1938 through February 1964. These have been divided between the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) library, or CAIS (Centre for Academic Information Services), Kota Samarahan, and the Tun Jugah Foundation library-archives in Kuching.

Anthony Richards was an avid amateur photographer who took many pictures throughout his years in Sarawak, including classic over-the-railing photos of his first sighting of the Sarawak coastline and his journey up the Sarawak River to Kuching. By good fortune, a brother owned a photographic studio in England and many of his earlier photographs were sent to England for processing. As a result, the negatives and many prints survived the Japanese Occupation, and so provide a rare photographic glimpse of pre-war life in Sarawak, from late 1938 through 1941.

The photographic record takes up again with an official photo taken in October 1945 in Labuan showing an extremely gaunt and bearded Anthony Richards shortly after his release from the civilian prisoner of war camp at Batu Lintang (see the Richards memorial). This photo is now kept in the Tun Jugah Foundation archives. Richards' own photographic record begins again in 1946, following his return to Sarawak after a period of recuperation in England, and continues, uninterrupted, until his departure with his family in 1964. While the pre-war photographs were taken largely...