Anthony Walter Dayrell Brooke

Anthony Walter Dayrell Brooke (10 December 1912 – 2 March 2011) was proclaimed the Rajah Muda (heir apparent; Malay: Yang Amat Mulia Rajah Muda Sarawak) on 25 March 1939, by his uncle, Rajah of Sarawak, Charles Vyner Brooke, the third and last ruling White Rajah. Later in his life he was a peace activist founding the organisation Operation Peace Through Unity. He died in Whanganui, New Zealand.

Brooke was the son of Bertram, Tuan Muda of Sarawak and Gladys Milton Palmer, daughter of Sir Walter Palmer, 1st Baronet, and heir to part of the Huntley & Palmers biscuit fortune.

Background

Anthony Brooke grew up in Britain and was educated at Eton College; Trinity College, Cambridge; and the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London. Throughout the 1930s he served the Sarawak civil service in various sectors, including the Land and Registry Department, and as a magistrate.

Brooke was proclaimed Rajah Muda of Sarawak on 25 March 1939 and was granted the personal style of His Highness. Having been responsible for administering Sarawak between 1939 and 1940, in the absence of the Rajah, he was deprived of his styles and titles on 17 January 1940, over his marriage to a commoner, Kathleen Hudden, sister of a Sarawak government official. Anthony Brooke was restored as Rajah Muda conditionally on a 5 year probationary period in April 1941, but then dismissed and expelled from the state in September 1941, for objecting to various aspects of a proposed new constitution.

On 24 October 1945, Rajah Charles Vyner Brooke made an agreement to cede Sarawak to the British, dependent upon getting approval from the Sarawak Government Supreme Council. Anthony Brooke, the designated heir, initially opposed the cession to the Crown, along with a majority of the native members of the Council Negri (Parliament), but due to the European vote the Cession Bill was carried by a vote of 19 to 16. A five-year campaign in Sarawak followed, aimed at revoking the country's new colonial status, in part directed by Brooke from his house in Singapore. This was not revealed at the time as the assassins were found to be agitating for union with newly independent Indonesia and the British government did not want to provoke Indonesia which had only recently won its war of independence from the Netherlands, and the UK was already dealing with the Malayan Emergency to the north-west.

Brooke and his wife Gita Brooke founded Operation Peace Through Unity (OPTU) in Sweden in 1975. From 1987 until Brooke's death in 2011 they lived together in Wanganui, New Zealand.

Brooke was a traveller and lecturer, supporting various movements for peace and universal understanding.

In 2013, the acting British high commissioner to Malaysia attended Brooke's reburial in Sarawak and offered an apology on behalf of Great Britain, clearing Anthony Brooke's name of any involvement.

Personal life

Brooke was married firstly, in Rangoon, Burma, to Kathleen Mary Hudden (1907–1981), daughter of William Edward Cecil Hudden, Esq., of Backwell, Somerset, who became the Ranee Muda of Sarawak. They had three children:

James Bertram Lionel Brooke (16 August 1940 – 27 May 2017 ) was a Life Member of the Sarawak Association, Chairman of the Brooke Heritage Trust, and a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. He married, firstly, Victoria Holdsworth (born 1949) (she would later marry Sir Paul Getty), married secondly Karen Mary Lappin (born 1955). He had two sons by his second wife and lived in Edinburgh: Laurence Nicholas Brooke (born 1983 in London), was educated at Bruntsfield Primary School, Edinburgh, and The High School, Dublin. Jason Desmond Anthony Brooke (born 1985 in London), was also educated at Bruntsfield and The High School, Dublin. Received a BA degree in English literature from University College Dublin and an MPhil in International Conflict Studies from Trinity College, Dublin. He had married Kate Marie Brook and has two children. Jago Charles Bertram Brooke Charles Argus Michael Brooke Angela Carole Brooke (1942–1986) Celia Margaret Brooke (3 November 1944 – 17 December 2011), married first to David Ray Harper Inayat Khan (grandson of Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan ), married secondly Marcel Captier of Rennes le Chateau. She had a daughter by her first husband: Sura Brooke Harper, who has two sons Leandro Kubilay James Ray

Anthony Brooke lived for various periods in London, in Sussex, and at Findhorn community in Scotland. In 1982, he married secondly a fellow peace activist: Brigitte (Gita) Keller (born in 1931 in Copenhagen to the Reverend Paul H. Lange), who took his name and became known as Gita Brooke. His death coincided with the anniversary of the deaths of two of the four members of the Sarawak Anti-Cession Movement, Rosli Dhoby and Awang Ramli Amit, who were hanged at Kuching Central Prison on 2 March 1950, while the two others, Bujang Suntong and Morshidi Sidek, were hanged on 27 March. His ashes travelled to Sarawak in an urn made by Whanganui potter Ross Mitchell-Anyon. On the stated date, the International Day of Peace, in a private ceremony attended by Brooke's widow Gita, his grandson Jason Brooke, British Deputy High Commissioner Ray Kyles, and New Zealand High Commissioner David Pine, Brooke's ashes were buried near Fort Margherita.