Borneo Company Limited
[2] In 1855, Mr. George Acland established a jute mill for spinning jute yarn at Rishra, West Bengal, India; in 1858 the Borneo Company imported weaving machinery and power loom to be stationed at Baranagar, West Bengal, with George Henderson as its agent.
[6] Helms was tasked to "buy up the antimony ore, and generally to develop the trade of the country", with a Chinese, an Indian, and a Malay as his initial staff.
[6] Since October 1856, The Borneo Company allocated £200 a year to build an Anglican school in Simunjan District in Sadong area (today part of Samarahan Division).
[6] During 1857 Chinese uprising in Bau, BCL employee R Wellington was killed while lodging in police inspector P. Middleton's house.
In 1875, BCL was appointed as manager for the "Singapore-Sarawak Steamship Company" (S-SSC), where the latter was formed on the advice of the Sarawak Chamber of Commerce to open a trade link with Singapore.
With just two ships namely Rajah Brooke and the 2nd Royalist, the company paid 40 to 50% dividends to shareholders for the monopoly sago trade to Singapore.
However, after a preliminary survey at the site, BCL decided to forgo the rights because of "too large a commitment" to develop the oil deposits.
At this time, the company was involved in various sectors such as shipping, airline, insurance, forestry, wood processing, and consumer products.
In 2016, LF Asia sold its interests to another China based company known as DCH (Dah Chong Hong Holdings Ltd).
Helms helped to produce the second map of Sarawak Proper (today Kuching area) during his term as the manager of BCL.
[8] The Brooke government made monetary transactions through agents in Singapore and London prior to the formation of the Borneo Company (BCL).
[6] People had also approached the company for loans to collect forest produce, build boats, and carry out trading activities.
The Dayak people also accumulated enough cash by selling forest produce during economic boom times and started to provide loans to Chinese traders.
To protect the interests of the Dayak people, Rajah Charles Brooke issued an order dated 27 June 1885, stating that all loans should be registered with BCL or otherwise heavy penalties will be instituted.
In 1905, Cantonese-managed Kwong Lee Mortgage & Remittance Company was formed, ending the dominance of BCL banking businesses in Sarawak.
[6] In 1925, Charles Vyner Brooke invited London-based Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China to open a branch in Kuching.
BCL later agreed not to open new accounts, while the company continued to provide service to existing customers, mainly consisting of Dayaks, who would sometimes come downriver to the office to see their money.
Other facilities such as mule tracks, tramways, and footbridges connecting mine sites and processing centers; a wharf at Buso and a hospital in Bau were also built.
Accidents occurred in 1858 where a falling stone killed a Chinese miner and an Indian buffalo driver lost his arm after falling down in front of a wagon filled with ore. BCL incurred a loss of £20,000 and closed the mine, depriving the Brooke government of payment of £1,000 from BCL on exclusive rights for coal extraction.
Mine manager W. G. Brodie predicted that the Brooke government would have difficulty supplying the remaining 150 tons of coal to the P&O Steam Navigation Company and would suffer heavy losses.
[6] Antimony deposits were readily found in Bau District, especially in Buso, Bidi West, and East Mines, along the tributaries of the Sarawak River.
Later in 1858, BCL hired miners from England to build tramway track made up of Belian wood (Eusideroxylon) with wagons drawn by buffaloes.
[6] BCL discovered the mercury ore (Cinnabar or mercuric sulphide) at the foot of the 250-metre tall Tegora hill, in the Bungo Range, 20-kilometre south of Busau, Bau District in September 1867.
BCL later turned to the recovery of fine gold particles by suspending the crushed ore in cyanide solution after the method was first used in South Africa in 1890.
Bau gold processing plant was finally opened in 1898 after significant adaptations of the cyanidation technique from South Africa.
By 1919, the Tai Parit site was excavated 200 feet, with increasingly unstable geology, threatened by monsoon rains and landslides.
However, gold ore sources for Bidi plant were widely scattered, from as far as four miles away at Jagoi mountains near the Dutch Borneo.
[8] BCL tried to extract ore body sticking out from the foot of the limestone hills at Jambusan, seven kilometres away from the town of Bau, but was unsuccessful.
The Sarawak government bought two boilers with steam engines and 250kW generators from the Bau processing plant for $60,000 and was later commissioned as a power station in Kuching on 15 June 1923.
Tuan Muda Charles Brooke opined that Syarif Masahor, the governor of Brunei of that area needs to be expelled in order to resume trade with Mukah.
