Migrants from the Syrian Christian community of Kerala, are reported to have first arrived on the shores of the then Malaya as early as 1910. The Syrian Christian community was always a small community with only 70 Syrian Christians recorded in the census of 1930. Among the earliest was Isaac Benjamin (also known as the "Ninan Inspector") who was followed by K.C. George in 1911. K.C. George laid the foundation of the Mar Thoma Church in Malaya by actively encouraging the movement of Syrian Christians from Kerala to Malaya, in spite of the dangers posed by malaria, rampant this country at that time.