Botanist dogged by spy rumours vindicated?

A pencilled note may clear the name of the Botanic Gardens' former assistant director, accused of being a spy during the Occupation and despised by many

By LEA WEE

PROFESSOR Edred 'John' Henry Corner, once the Botanic Gardens' assistant director, spent the latter part of his life dogged by accusations that he had been a spy for the Japanese during the Occupation.

Now, five years after his death in Cambridge, England, at the age of 90, his name may finally be cleared.

A paper published in the latest issue of the Gardens' Bulletin, Singapore, confirms the existence of a pencilled note from the then British Governor to the Japanese.

Sir Shenton Thomas was recommending Prof Corner to help them conserve the Botanic Gardens and Raffles Museum during the war years.

Dr David Mabberley's paper, A Tropical Botanist Finally Vindicated, fits Prof Corner's account of the episode in his 1981 book, The Marquis - A Tale Of The Syonan-to.

Syonan-to was the name that the Occupation forces gave Singapore.

In that book, Prof Corner said the note had been lost in a 1945 fire in Sendai, Japan, together with the other belongings of Professor Hidezo Tanakadate, the Japanese official in charge of the gardens and the museum during the war.

But his critics refused to believe such a note existed.

About a year ago, however, Dr Mabberley, a former student of Prof Corner, found evidence that Prof Tanakadate had, in fact, published the then Governor's note in a Japanese newspaper in June 1942.

Dr Ruth Kiew, 55, the keeper of the herbarium and library at the gardens, who is also Prof Corner's former student, said she had never doubted him.

'I always found him to be very honest.

'He used to be very annoyed that people refused to believe him.'

She was his student from 1967 to 1972 at Cambridge University, where he taught tropical botany after he left Singapore when the war ended.

Rather than being a collaborator, Prof Corner played a key role in protecting the natural heritage of Singapore during the war years, she said.

'You can imagine that after the British lost control, there was complete anarchy and looting was a real concern.

'By working with the Japanese to secure the scientific collections and libraries, the heritage was saved for posterity.'

At that time, there were about 400,000 plant specimens in the gardens' herbarium, 200,000 animal specimens in the Raffles Museum and hundreds of books in their libraries.

All are historic collections that go back to the 1880s.

Unlike the other Britons interned in Changi Prison under punishing conditions, Prof Corner and Professor Richard Eric Holttum, then director of the Botanic Gardens, became civil internees.

They stayed in the house of the Japanese director and continued their duties in the gardens under the Japanese.

Said Dr Kiew: 'For Prof Corner, those were productive years where his scientific work was concerned.

'He felt strongly that science was international and that scientists should be judged by their scientific work, and not by their nationality or the political regime under which they lived.'

According to Dr Mabberley, despite Prof Corner's considerable success in organising food supplies, he was thereafter despised by many who saw him as a collaborator.

For some of the Changi survivors, that loathing was lifelong.

When he published his account of the war years, it re-awakened that loathing and his account, especially of the Governor's note, was questioned.

No British publisher would touch the book, which was eventually published here by Heinemann Asia.

Whether this latest piece of evidence will change the way in which the survivors of Changi and their families view Prof Corner remains to be seen.