A Story about Tidman
Hello David "L" Tidman and to my parents & brothers:
My Uncle Roy & Aunt Shirley Tidman, who live in the Southeast London district
of Blackheath (near Greenwich), sent me a local magazine article about a
"Paul Frederick Tidman". The following article is from the the April 2001
issue of The Guide Magazine:
"From Kuching to Chislehurst -- via SE3
Neil Rhind traces the vivid and active life of Paul Tidman
It was in the late 1960's, when living in a first floor flat at No 7 Pond
Road, that my interest in the attractive quality and the history of
Blackhealth first took hold. Ewan Hooper had appointed me part time press
officer for the then not yet opened Greenwich Theatre. The previous occupant
of that post, a young couple who had conducted an outstanding campaign during
Ewan's long campaign to re-open the old building on Crooms HIll, had gone
abroad. The Theatre was in a hole and I was roped in to help pull it out. I
was menat to assist only up to the first production........ which opened in
October 1969, but I stayed much, much longer and thoroughly enjoyed my time.
It was walking home through Greenwich Park and across Blackheath......that
led me to look more closely at my surroundings.
And it was my interest in the Pond Road house that led me to enquire about
its previous inhabitants. That it had been a once-grand single family
residence, with eight bedrooms and three reception, a basement kitchen and
attics for the housemaids was obvious. But since the 1930s it had been four
flats.
The first resident I quickly learned had been a man called Paul Fredrick
Tidman who lived there, with his growing family, from 1865 until 1876 when he
moved to Fairlight, a large property on the edge of Chislehurst Common.
Tidman, an East India merchant, died in January 1889, much loved by family,
friends and neighbours, after a most useful and busy life, but at the sadly
early age of 52.
That might have been that but Paul Tidman proved, on investigation, to have
lived a most interesting life and to have started his business career in most
dramatic circumstances in Sarawak, British North Borneo.
His background was gentle: father was Dr. Arthur Tidman, for 27 years
Secretary to the London Missionary Society and one of those who had promoted
the building of its school for the sons and orphans of missionaries, now the
Church Army HQ, in Independents Road.
Dr. Arthur T. was not a Blackheath resident but his widow, Ann, and his two
older sons settled there. Paul's older brother, Robert Vaughan Tidman, lived
at Priory Lodge, Priory Park from 1868 until his untimely death in 1885.
Tidman offspring were still living in Blackheath until 1945.
When young Paul left London University he sailed for the East Indies to seek
a position in Singapore but with the formation of the Borneo Company he was
engaged as its agent in Sarawak. Although just 19, Paul Tidman became the
effective personal assistant to Sir James Brooke, the "white rajah" and
virtual ruler of Sarawak since 1841.
Alas, progress of both the company and its young representative was halted
almost at once. In February 1857 a gang of Chinese rose against the European
settlers and the Malay population. The excuse for the rebellion was based on
taxes and opium. The British authority (in the form of Brooke) taxed the
Chinese on a forecast of the number of balls of opium likely to be
manufactured in a given year. The Chinese claimed that they had been
over-taxed although in truth the "problem" had been exacerbated by the
arrival in Sarawak of the leader of then outlawed secret society (the
Thein-Ti Hueh or Tirad) accompanied by various known criminals eager for a
spot of murder and pillage.
Two hundred rebels attached the town of Kuching (the only sizable settlement
in a land mass the size of France) on Februrary 19. They ransacked the
armoury, stealing guns and ammunition and fired the houses of the Europeans.
Brooke fled, leaving his servants to be the first victims of the assassins;
others, including Tidman, were holded up in the mission house, surrounded by
the mob and likely to die. During this time Tidman was effectively in charge
of Borneo.
Tidman's group held out -- about a dozen all told, including women and
children -- and when down to almost the last round they were saved. In true
Boy's Own Paper adventure story style, salvation came in the form of a
British gunboat, which sailed into Kuching harour and put the Chinese to
flight. Revenge was organised by Brooke who gave authority to the Dyak
headhunters to pursue the retreating Chinese rebels through the Borneo
jungles. It was estimated that only 2,000 Chinese survived from a
pre-insurrection population of about 4,500.
Tidman's first-hand account of all this survived to be published
(anonymously) in Ludvig Helm's Pioneering in the Far East (London, 1882) but
his personal heroism only becoming public knowledge on his death, seven years
later. Paul Tidman returned to England in 1864, where he married Frances,
daughter of James Kershaw, MP for Salford. Two of her sisters maried two more
Tidman boys -- surely unusual in well-regualted cirlcles then and now.
Tidman's career as an East India merchant in London flourished. He entered a
partnership with William McTaggart, who lived at No. 54 Blackheath Park
where, by coincidence, my wife and I lived before we moved to No. 7 Pond
Road. Tidman was passionately in favour of bi-metallism - the free coinage of
gold and silver at a fixed ratio of 15:50 of silver to one of gold. He
contributed knowledgeably to important debateds on the self-defence fo the
Colonies especially in the construction and protection of coaling stations.
It was this interest which led him to be conferred with the Order of
Commander of St Michael & St George (CMG) - an honour then given especially
to men of colonial distinction.
The move to Chislehurst in 1876 did not diminish his activity and there he
not only worked hard on schemes which helped the unemployed find work and new
homes in Canada but he was also much concerned with the conservation of
public open spaces.
His campaign to protect the comman at Chislehurst was successful and Tidman
was the first Chairman of Conservators of that public green. It was a
cleverly constructed system of charitable control that survives today not
only at Chislehurst but also at Wimbledon. It is a system that should have
been applied to Blackheath when the GLC was abolished in 1986 instead of
splitting it between two authorities. Perhaps if a Paul Frederick Tidman had
been around in the 1980s then it might have been."
There is also a picture of Paul, so if anyone wants a copy of the article
faxed or mailed to them, let me know.
My uncle Roy also writes that one of his uncles made binoculars for Winston
Churchill in Seven Oakes.
Interesting stuff, huh!!!
Have a great weekend--
David "R"
More Replies:
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Re: A Story about Tidman
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Re: A Story about Tidman