A British historian’s pursuit of love, history in Cordillera
BAGUIO CITY—Scholars of Cordillera history often reflect on the insights of British historian Howard T. Fry, author of the 1983 book “A History of the Mountain Province.”
Fry, who died in 2023 at the age of 103, pursued his research while courting Benguet-born Georgiana Caoili Alipio, a Philippine Airlines stewardess he met in Mindanao. Georgiana eventually became his wife.
Now 82, Georgiana described “A History of the Mountain Province” as “the product of our long courtship.”
“I just realized he found these rich materials about the highlands because he was following me around,” she told the Inquirer in an interview on Wednesday.
Fry painstakingly researched early 20th century archives, government documents, manuscripts, and recorded interviews to understand colonial ambitions in the resource-rich Cordillera region where communities of indigenous peoples thrived.
Securing rights
The original Mountain Province of 1909 included today’s Benguet province; Bontoc, now the capital of the modern Mountain Province; Ifugao province, home to the World Heritage rice terraces; Kalinga province; Apayao province; Lepanto, a mining region now part of Benguet’s Mankayan town; and Amburayan, a river-based town that no longer exists.
The Igorot inhabitants of the Cordillera resisted Spanish rule, but the region was eventually reshaped by American colonial policies and the Philippine bureaucracy.
Georgiana recently returned to Baguio to secure the rights to Fry’s book after packing up her late husband’s notes and documents in their home in Wales.
A Royal Air Force pilot who fought in World War II, Fry became interested in the Philippines because it provided fresh materials about the British East India Company, the global trading arm of the British Empire that extended into Indochina and what is now Southeast Asia.
In 1968, Fry joined the faculty of James Cook University in North Queensland, Australia, helping develop a Southeast Asian division where Philippine studies became a prominent course, according to the Howard T. Fry Papers website of the University of the Philippines (UP) Baguio. He also spent time at Notre Dame of Jolo College researching the influence of Alexander Dalrymple, a hydrographer working for the East India Company in the 19th century.
Georgiana said Fry pursued her with a diligence few see outside romantic comedies. “We first met in Jolo in the early 1970s,” she said.
Georgiana, then stationed in Zamboanga City, recommended her childhood schoolmate, Zenaida Brigida Hamada Pawid , for work at Notre Dame of Jolo College. Pawid, former chair of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, is also a published author, having cowritten the 1985 book “A People’s History of Benguet Province” with UP Baguio history professor Anavic Bagamaspad.
Visit to rice terraces
“I wanted to leave the airline, so I was saying my goodbyes to friends like Brigitte (Pawid), and Howard was there,” Georgiana told the Inquirer.
Fry wanted to visit the rice terraces—now a World Heritage Site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and asked Georgiana to accompany him.
“My friends were supposed to join, but they backed out, so I thought, ‘What will I tell Papa?’” she said.
Arturo Alipio, her father and a prominent official of La Trinidad, Benguet, arranged the trip, and a Dangwa Bus Line driver served as their chaperone to Banaue, Ifugao.
In one of his research trips, Fry climbed an 8-foot-high ladder at a reconstructed village to inspect an indigenous dwelling—“but [he] forgot how to climb down,” Georgiana recalled.
“I was frozen in place, aghast, when Howard took a step into the air and fell right onto me,” she said.
Fry survived but had to recuperate in hospitals in Baguio and Metro Manila for three months, with Georgiana visiting him between flights.
“He broke a pelvic bone because he was lugging a camera when he fell on my legs. I felt guilty, so I kept visiting him, and we got to know each other,” she said.
She initially turned down his first marriage proposal before she moved to the United States.
Fry followed her there, and during his visits, he managed to find libraries and museums holding materials about the old Mountain Province.
Fry, according to the UP Baguio website, acknowledged Georgiana for introducing him “to part of the Cordillera Central.”
Philippine wedding
The couple eventually married in the Philippines in 1981, with Fry’s three sisters attending. Georgiana later joined him in Australia until his retirement. They eventually moved to Wales.
The couple, however, had not been blessed with children. “I had two miscarriages,” Georgiana said, accepting their circumstances.
“I am alone now,” she added, reflecting on whether she would return to the Philippines. “When we stayed in Australia and moved to Wales, we lived in homes near the sea … it had been a wonderful life.”
