History of Penang - Straits Settlements

Started with a chaotic early stage of colonization process, situation begins to settle down. According to the history of Penang, here come the era of Straits Settlements under the British administration.


Straits Settlements


In 1826, Penang, along with Malacca and Singapore, became part of the Straits Settlements under the British administration in India, later coming under direct British rule in 1867 as a Crown Colony. George Town became the capital of the Straits Settlements but its status was soon supplanted by rapidly developing Singapore whose importance eclipsed Penang's.


Penang was rocked by the Penang Riots of 1867, which were nine days of heavy street fighting and bloodshed among the secret societies of Penang. The fighting spiraled out of control, until the British were able bring in reinforcements from Singapore. The two principal Chinese secret societies - the Cantonese-speaking Ghee Hin and the Hakka-speaking Hai San (see Chung Keng Quee) - quarreled over commercial interests, especially in the lucrative tin-mining industry. Today's Cannon Street was so named because of the hole made on the ground by a cannon ball fired into the area from Khoo Kongsi.

Map of British India and the Straits Settlements by English mapmaker W G Blackie, 1860

The opening of Suez Canal in 1869 greatly expanded British trade with the Far East. Colonial Penang prospered through exports of tin and rubber, which fed the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Penang's prosperity attracted people from far and wide, making Penang truly a melting pot of diverse cultures. Among the ethnic groups found in Penang were Malays, Acehnese, Arabs, Armenians, British, Burmese, Germans, Jews, Chinese, Gujeratis, Bengalis, Japanese, Punjabis, Sindhis, Tamils, Thais, Malayalees, Rawas, Javanese, Mandailings, Portuguese, Eurasians and others. Though many of them no longer impose a felt presence today, their memory lives on in place names such as Burma Road, Rangoon Road, Siam Road, Armenian Street, Acheen Street, Gottlieb Road, and Katz Street, and the Jewish Cemetery.


Cosmopolitan Penang was already a thriving colony of the British Empire in the first decades of the 20th century, counting among its eminent visitors Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, Noel Coward, Herman Hesse, Karl May, Count Friedrich M. von Hochberg and Hans Sturzenegger. Generally distinguished visitors stayed at the venerable luxury Eastern and Oriental Hotel.

(courtesy of wikipedia.org)

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History of Penang - Early Days - Part2

Early Days - continued


Unbeknownst to the Sultan, Light had acted without the approval of the East India Company when he promised military protection. When the Company failed to aid Kedah when it was attacked by Thai, the Sultan tried to retake the island in 1790. The attempt was unsuccessful, and the Sultan was forced to cede the island to the Company for an honorarium of 6,000 Spanish dollars per annum. This was later increased to 10,000 dollars, with Province Wellesley (Seberang Prai) being added to Penang in 1800. An annual honorarium of 18,800 ringgit continues to be paid by the Penang State Government to the Sultan of Kedah.


The settlement was first built around the harbour with Fort Cornwallis forming the island's defence. Light became the first Superintendent of the Prince of Wales Island. To expedite jungle clearing by labourers, Light fired silver coins from his ship cannons into the dense vegetation, and the land was cleared in no time. The original four streets of George Town were Beach Street, Light Street, Pitt Street (now Masjid Kapitan Keling Street) and Chulia Street, all of which still form the main thoroughfares of the modern city. Other early roads include Church Street, Bishop Street, China Street and Market Street, and by the early 1800s also Armenian Street and Acheen Street.

Fort Cornwallis in George Town, British outpost

Light declared Prince of Wales Island a free port to attract trade away from the Dutch who were then the colonial ruler of the Dutch East Indies. This strategy drew many immigrant traders to Penang. Settlers were allowed to claim whatever land they could clear. By 1789, Penang had 5,000 residents and this doubled by the end of the following decade. The first Chinese settlers in Penang came from an existing community in Kedah, with their leader, called a Kapitan Cina, being Koh Lay Huan, a Baba.


In the history of Penang, Light died of malaria on 21 October 1794 and was buried at the Protestant cemetery at the end of Northam Road (now Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah). His son, William Light went on to found the city of Adelaide in Australia. Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington) arrived in Penang to coordinate the island's defences. In 1800, Lieutenant-Governor Sir George Leith secured a strip of land across the channel from the island and named it Province Wellesley, after Richard Colley Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, Governor-General of India.


Early in the 19th century, Penang was used as a staging post for the opium trade between India and China. The East India Company auctioned off licences to gambling dens, brothels and opium traders (this alone accounted for approximately 60% of colonial Penang's


In 1805, Penang's colonial status was elevated to that of a Residency. Stamford Raffles arrived in Penang to work as the Deputy Secretary to the Governor of Penang, Philip Dundas from 1805 to 1810 and subsequently founded Singapore in 1819.

(courtesy of wikipedia.org)

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History of Penang - Early Days - Part1

Penang is a historical & cultural rich state located at Peninsular Malaysia. The history of Penang is being told for such a long time with full of interesting elements & events throughout the span of time. The history of Penang is closely related to the history of Kedah. Penang was previously part of the sultanate of Kedah until it became a British possession in 1786. It later gained independence as part of the Federation of Malaya in 1957.


Early Days


Sixteenth century Portuguese traders from Goa, India sailing to the Far East in search of spices found a small island where they replenished their water supplies. They named it Pulo Pinaom. In the 17th century, Penang’s location at the northern entry to the Straits of Malacca provided a sheltered harbour for Chinese, Indian, Arabian and European ships during the monsoon months; this, in turn, inevitably made it fertile hunting ground for pirates.

Fort Cornwallis, constructed by the British

One of the very first Englishmen to reach Penang was the merchant-navigator Sir James Lancaster who in 1588 served under Sir Francis Drake as commander of the Edward Bonadventure against the nemesis of the Spanish Armada. On 10 April 1591, commanding the same ship, he set sail from Plymouth for the East Indies, reaching Penang in June 1592, remaining on the island until September of the same year and pillaging every vessel he encountered. He returned to England in May 1594.


Originally part of the Malay sultanate of Kedah, Penang was ceded to the British East India Company in 1786 by the Sultan of Kedah, in exchange for military protection from Siamese and Burmese armies who were threatening Kedah. On 11 August 1786, Captain Francis Light, known as the founder of Penang, hoisted the Union Jack thereby taking formal possession of Penang and renamed it Prince of Wales Island (name used until after 1867) in honour of the heir to the British throne. Penang was the first British possession in the Malay States and Southeast Asia.


The location of the island at the opening of the Straits of Malacca attracted the British East India Company to use the island as a natural harbour and anchorage for their trading ships, and as a naval base to counter growing French ambitions in the region. The settlement on the north-eastern tip of the island was named George Town after King George III of the United Kingdom.

(courtesy of wikipedia.org)

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