Business card
Production date
1942
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Object detail
Description
Yellowed, paper card with black printed Thai, Japanese and English script on obverse. Handwritten pencil script on reverse.
Classification
DOCUMENTS Identification business card
Maker
Production date
1942
Production place
Measurements
Dimensions: L113 x W61 mm
Media/Materials description
Paper
History and use
A business card, printed in Thai, Japanese and English script, issued for Eng Ngeow, the proprietor of a dentistry and photo business in Bangkok, 1942-43.
The object is one of a collection donated to Queensland Museum by Patricia Christensen, daughter of Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick Smith, Dental Officer, AIF, who was taken prisoner after the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942. Ivan was imprisoned first in Changi prisoner-of-war camp and later transferred to Tha Sao prison hospital camp in Thailand.
As a dental technician, Sergeant Smith was classified as medical personnel and attached to Tha Sao base hospital as Resident Services Manager (RSM). Captain Finimore was Dental Officer and hospital adjutant, or registrar, under British Senior Medical Officer, Lieutenant Colonel William (Bill) Harvey. According to officers’ memoirs, Captain Finimore used a treadle dental drilling machine and also made a mixture of zinc oxide and eugenol (oil of cloves) for use for temporary fillings. Captain Finimore’s own diary records that initially, ‘work was fairly light with three hundred and fifty patients in three wards’. Later ‘the hospital grew rapidly … to two thousand seven hundred and seventy seven patients … one day there were three hundred patients out and five hundred and forty patients in’.
Tha Sao began as a camp hospital but grew to become the base hospital for about thirteen thousand prisoners-of-war. By November 1943, Tha Sao had around two thousand four hundred patients, one third of whom were Australian.
After the railway was completed in 1943, the prisoners still had almost two years to survive before their liberation. In early September 1945, Sergeant Smith and his fellow prisoners of war were ‘recovered’ from Thailand (then known as Siam). It’s likely, though not certain, that Ivan was among the same group as Captain Finimore, who were taken first to Rangoon (now, Yangon) and then to Bangkok on the first transition of their journey to Australia. He left Thailand on 6 October 1945 and from there was taken to Singapore. After returning to Brisbane, Sergeant Smith re-joined the AIF and remained in service until he reached the prescribed age for compulsory retirement on 21 July 1967. He died on 6 March 1974.
The object is one of a collection donated to Queensland Museum by Patricia Christensen, daughter of Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick Smith, Dental Officer, AIF, who was taken prisoner after the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942. Ivan was imprisoned first in Changi prisoner-of-war camp and later transferred to Tha Sao prison hospital camp in Thailand.
As a dental technician, Sergeant Smith was classified as medical personnel and attached to Tha Sao base hospital as Resident Services Manager (RSM). Captain Finimore was Dental Officer and hospital adjutant, or registrar, under British Senior Medical Officer, Lieutenant Colonel William (Bill) Harvey. According to officers’ memoirs, Captain Finimore used a treadle dental drilling machine and also made a mixture of zinc oxide and eugenol (oil of cloves) for use for temporary fillings. Captain Finimore’s own diary records that initially, ‘work was fairly light with three hundred and fifty patients in three wards’. Later ‘the hospital grew rapidly … to two thousand seven hundred and seventy seven patients … one day there were three hundred patients out and five hundred and forty patients in’.
Tha Sao began as a camp hospital but grew to become the base hospital for about thirteen thousand prisoners-of-war. By November 1943, Tha Sao had around two thousand four hundred patients, one third of whom were Australian.
After the railway was completed in 1943, the prisoners still had almost two years to survive before their liberation. In early September 1945, Sergeant Smith and his fellow prisoners of war were ‘recovered’ from Thailand (then known as Siam). It’s likely, though not certain, that Ivan was among the same group as Captain Finimore, who were taken first to Rangoon (now, Yangon) and then to Bangkok on the first transition of their journey to Australia. He left Thailand on 6 October 1945 and from there was taken to Singapore. After returning to Brisbane, Sergeant Smith re-joined the AIF and remained in service until he reached the prescribed age for compulsory retirement on 21 July 1967. He died on 6 March 1974.
Associated person
Registration number
H50535
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