On the 240th anniversary of the landing at Penaggar Point to found Penang as a British settlement by Captain Francis Light, I'm reproducing here a story that had appeared in The Straits Budget newspaper on 20 August 1936. The Straits Budget was a long‑running English‑language newspaper published in Singapore during the British colonial period, with circulation across the Straits Settlements of Singapore, Penang and Malacca. It played a distinctive role in the press landscape of British Malaya well into the 1950s.
PENANG 1786-1936
The Anniversary of the Hoisting Of the Flag On First British Foothold In Malaya
By JAMES F AUGUSTIN
EXACTLY one hundred and fifty years ago, on Aug 11, 1786, Captain Francis Light founded the Settlement of Penang. Charged by the Bengal Government with the task of establishing the new colony, he formally took possession of the island "in the name of King George and for the use of the Honourable East India Company."The actual ceremony took place at noon, when everyone assembled under the flagstaff and Captain Light read the Act of Possession. All the officers then assisted in hoisting the flag (the Old Jack) and the artillery and ships fired a salute and the marines three volleys.
Boyhood In Suffolk
Captain Light whose memory we honour today, was born at Dallinghoo, a parish near Woodbridge in Suffolk in 1740. Adopted and educated by William Negus, a relative of Milton and a son of Colonel Francis Negus, who held a prominent position at the Court of George I, he was sent to Seckford’s Grammar School at Woodbridge. On leaving School he entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman on board HMS Arrogant in 1761.
Four years later he resigned his commission and sailed for Calcutta as a passenger in the ship Clive. There he joined the Mercantile Marine as master of a country ship trading between Indian, Siamese and Malayan ports. In addition to his ordinary duties he acted as representative of the Madras firm of Messrs Jourdan, Sullivan and De Souza, which had traded for many years with Kedah, where it had maintained a factory since 1763.
Light made Salang (Junk Ceylon, now Tongkah) his headquarters and became very proficient in the Malay and Siamese languages. He also acquired a knowledge of native customs and won the confidence of the people.
Ever since 1763 the Directors of the East India Company had been seeking for a good naval station to the east of the Bay of Bengal, which would also serve as a commercial factory more central than Bencoolen in Sumatra and as a port of call for merchantmen en route to China. Light was well aware of this, and in 1771 he wrote to Warren Hastings suggesting that Penang would be a suitable place.
Nothing happened at the time and in 1780 Light went to Calcutta with another proposal that Salang, and not Penang, should be occupied. A scheme was drawn up for the occupation of Salang through private subscription but with the consent of the Governor-General-in-Council (Warren Hastings). Nothing was done however, because ships and men could not be spared owing to the War of the American Revolution and wars with the French and the Dutch which were then being waged.
Rebuff At Acheen
The need for a British port increased, especially in the face of opposition from the Dutch and Portuguese, who had settlements on the Peninsula and in Sumatra. They allowed trade at their own settlements and nowhere else. The Bengal Government in 1784 sent Mr Kinloch to found a settlement at Acheen in 1784 but he had to return owing to the hostility of the natives. Light was in Calcutta when Kinloch returned in 1786.
He immediately informed the Governor-General, Sir John Macpherson, who had succeeded Hastings, that he had exercised his personal influence with Sultan Abdullah of Kedah, who had agreed to cede the island of Penang to the East India Company for an annual subsidy of 6,000 Spanish dollars. Negotiations between the Company and the Sultan were thereupon opened and on February 23, 1786, the Governor-General-in-Council approved of the settlement of Penang. On May 2, 1786, Light was commissioned to treat with the Sultan and "vested with the charge and superintendence of the Island of Penang on the part of the Company."
Light lost no time in sailing for Kedah, where he arrived on June 29 in command of the Company's snow Eliza (a snow was a small type of sailing craft) and with a force of one hundred Bengal marines, thirty lascars, fifteen European artillerymen and five officers. Anchoring at Kuala Kedah, where he found two merchantmen, the Prince Henry and the Speedwell, he sent an officer ashore to inform the Sultan of his arrival. The next morning Light himself went ashore and was received by the Sultan's shahbandar and saluted by the guns of the fort and by three volleys from the marines.
On July 1 he again went ashore with the Governor-General's letter and presents, amid salutes fired by the fort, ships and marines. He was received by a guard of honour composed of Malays with colours flying, and, preceded by state trumpeters, was led to the Laxamana's (Admiral's) house where a canopy was erected and the King's representative, a Syed, received the letter and guns were again fired. The presents consisted, among other things, of brass-barrelled blunderbusses and gold and silver brocades, but as these were not considered sufficient, one hundred muskets were added.
Received By The Raja
Negotiations followed, and on July 3, after receiving a message from the Raja, Light, accompanied by a sergeant of artillery, a dozen marines and drums and fifes, came upstream to Alor Star, then, as now, the capital. He reached the town only on the following day and was received without any state by the Raja, who was much troubled at a passage in the Governor-General's letter which he did not understand, for it seemed to threaten him with pains and penalties if he did not comply with the Governor-General's request.
Light pointed out that there must be some mistake in the translation of the document and the Raja then appeared to be satisfied with regard to the explicit passage. After reading the translation again to his visitor he obliged Light to sign it. Six days later, Light took leave of the Raja and reached the Kuala with the signed treaty of cession.
He spent the next three days in embarking the troops and the stores, and on the 14th at 8 pm he sailed on the Eliza in company with the Prince Henry and Speedwell and anchored off Pulau Tikus Island on the 15th. With the help of a flood tide and a light breeze the little fleet ran into Penang harbour and anchored in thirteen fathoms of water within musket-shot of shore.
The first two days Light stayed on board, surveying the harbour and testing the anchorages, and on the 17th, he disembarked Lieutenant Gray and the marines on Point Penaggar, near the Esplanade. The troops were at once set to clear the ground, which did not prove to be an easy task, the wood being "so exceeding hard that the tools double like a piece of lead."
The Europeans landed on the following day and the island soon presented a busy appearance. Attap houses were erected with attaps from Kedah, wells were dug and tents were pitched. Almost a month passed away in the performance of these first labours.
George Town Named
On August 10 two of the Company's ships, the Vansittart and the Valentine, arrived off the island and the formal ceremony of taking possession took place, Light naming the settlement George Town after the Prince of Wales and the fort Cornwallis after the Governor-General.
The new colony progressed rapidly and by 1789 the population had increased to about ten thousand. The task of governing this mixed multitude fell entirely upon the shoulders of Light himself.
In 1789 Light went to Calcutta and was able to inform the authorities (who regarded his settlement with some jealousy) that the imports had already reached six hundred thousand dollars per annum. In the following year, prompted by his high sense of responsibility to the settlement, he petitioned the Government in Calcutta for an increase in his salary of one thousand rupees per mensem to enable him to give up trade because he was of the opinion that the duties of government were not consistent with his trading activities. It is not recorded whether this request was granted but it is sufficient to reveal the uprightness of his character, for as Superintendent and principal merchant he had every opportunity of enriching himself in those lax days.
Light's Death
In January, 1794, Light petitioned that a trained civilian should succeed him and that a regular system of administering justice should be established. This was virtually his last act, for later on in the same year he went down with malaria, to which he had been subject for many years, and died on Oct 21, to the great grief of the whole Settlement.Francis Light has been described as "a worthy precursor of Sir Stamford Raffles" and as "a man of sound sense, probity and judgment - active, practical and moderate." His name survives in Light Street and in Francis Light School, Penang. His tomb lies in the middle of the Protestant cemetery in Northam Road but there is also a monument opposite the portico of St. George's Church, Penang, where a memorial tablet let into the wall of the canopy bears this inscription:
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