(iii) Development
of the City of George Town
WHILE THERE HAD BEEN earlier settlement on various
parts of the island,63 it was on Tanjong Penaga (Point
Penagger) that the British first established their settlement in 1786,
and it was this area that was subsequently to develop into the city of
George Town. Francis Light's initial policy of allowing people to occupy
that land which they cleared did attract settlers, but also proved quite
haphazard as there were no survey staff.64 While land titles
were issued, there was no requirement that the land thus alienated to
particular individuals be cultivated.65 As such, much land remained
unused, and unusable by the administration. Prior to 1805, little land
was retained for public purposes and during the administration of Mr
Farquhar, when the administration wished to build a Government House,
the land had to be procured from James Scott.66 In 1804, after
his retirement, Sir George Leith, noted that there were still no public
buildings (presumably excluding the fort) and that those more urgently
required were a Government House, a customs house, public offices, a court
house and a jail. The 1798 plan of George Town done for Captain Home Briggs
Popham, does show a Customs House, which presumably was only temporary. It
also shows that most of the town was located north of what is today Chulia
Street and east of the present Love Lane. To the south, along the coast,
in what is today the Acheen and Armenian Street area, lay the "Malay Town".67
Much government construction was, however, undertaken during the administration
of Mr. Farquhar between 1804 and 1805, just before the Gazette came
into being. The buildings erected included a Government House, built
on land which today forms part of Light Street Convent, and which had
belonged to Francis Light, and then Martina Rozells, before coming into
the hands of James Scott. Mention of new buildings erected after 1806
can be found within the pages of the Gazette.
F.G Stevens has written of the failure of early Penang
(in terms of the subsequent transfer of government to Singapore in
1826) as an "administrative failure", resulting in part from the unwise
land policy.68 The alienation of land to grantees who did
not make full use of it was apparently a major problem. Its effects
are observable through an government advertisement seen in the Government
Gazette of 27 September 1806, in which we read of a "piece of ground
situated on the Point known by the name of Mount Airy69,
and described in Grant No. 2770, as 'bounded to the Eastward
by a ditch and fence and measuring along that side 792 feet, bounded to
the westward by the road leading from the beach into Penang Road, and measuring
on that side 506 feet, bounded to the northward by the road leading along
the beach and measuring on that side 250 feet, bounded on the Southward
by the Penang Road, and measuring on that side 462 feet.'" This piece of
land, we are told, was granted by Francis Light to its "present Proprietor"
Francis Simson on 16 July 1794.71 The reason Mr. Simson's land
was detailed in this notice was that allegedly it had become a "noisesome
and pestilential swamp, the exhalations from which are highly prejudicial
to the health of the inhabitants", and it was to be offered for public sale
if it was not drained.
This is just one example of land and title descriptions
from the newspaper. There are a huge range of other examples of
"pieces of ground" included in estates and auctions being described
in quite some detail. Other references are, however, much less explicit.
One in the Gazette of 9 March 1816, speaks only of an auction of "part
of that piece or parcel of ground, described in Grant No 1252, situated
in the District of Tanjong Penaigue, on the west side of the Penang Road,
estimated to contain 55 Jumbas".
By careful collection and analysis of land-holding references
in the Gazette, opportunities exist for reconstructing at least
some of the land grants or land holdings, as a way of plotting the
evolution of the early city.72 There appears to be no extant
listing or maps of the various land grants extended in the early years
of the settlement of Penang.73 As such, the land records
contained in the Gazette (and which, as can be seen above, contains
some details of land grants from the 1790s) will be essential in reconstructing
how early George Town developed.
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(iv)
Developments Outside Tanjong
The roads which were first developed by the East India
Company administrators centred, naturally enough, on George Town.
The map of Captain Home Briggs Popham of 179874 illustrates
those which existed at the end of the 18th century.75 Roads
into the interior of the island were, by accounts, little more than
tracks, even into the early 19th century, but it was during this period
that settlements and estates appeared at Ayer Itam (mainly occupied by
the East India Company's pepper and spice plantations), Talloh Jelutong
(Teluk Jelutong), Batu Lanchang, Sungei Gelugor, Batu Uban, Sungei Dua
and Sungei Nibong. It was again under the administration of Farquhar (1804-05)
that better roads were built throughout the island. Much of the construction
was carried out by convicts, as Penang was also a penal colony for British
India from even before 1800.
Telok Ayer Rajah (the "Bay of the Raja's Water" -a reference
most likely to that area where people anchored to obtain water from
the waterfall), but which was used to refer to the areas between Tanjong
and the Waterfall and including all the lands between the north
beach and Penang Road, saw quite rapid development. Some of the land
in this area was initially developed by people who bore Islamic names,
but their place of origin is not clear. An advertisement from a Gazette
of May 1806 carried the following notice:
Public sale: To be sold by A. Macintyre by order of
Hadjee Yunoos, administrator, on 20 May, a piece of ground, situated
in the district of Tulloh Ayer Rajah, the property of Hadjee Yunoos,
deceased. Bounded eastward by the beach, westward by the woods, northward
by Hadjee Sonien's ground and southward by Hadjee Mohammed Ally and
Shah Mohammed's ground."76
One of the regional centres on the island which has
been almost forgotten today is that of James Town. Many Penang people
have not even heard of it. This James Town was the town which sprang
up on the island somewhere around the Sungei Kluang, opposite Pulau
Jerejak, on land again belonging to Mr James Scott. Mr Scott had, in
the first years of the 19th century acquired land in the area, on the
understanding that because of the poor health conditions in George Town,
and the likelihood that the island would become a major naval and ship-building
centre, that the harbour of Prince of Wales Island would be shifted to James
Town. The issuing of revenue farm licenses for James Town has been detailed
above,77 but little else of James Town has yet been described
in scholarly or popular literature. It is likely that some further references
to this entity, the name of which seems to disappear from the historical
record in about 1818, will be found within the pages of the Gazette.
Some history of the hills of Penang and their development
can also be gleaned from the pages of the Gazette. A long letter
to the editor of the Government Gazette in 1829, for example, details
the various hills of Penang, their heights, who owns them, what has
been built upon them and what crops are cultivated upon them.78
It is also possible to study some of the major buildings
of the island through references to them in the Gazette. One prominent
example is Suffolk House, which some of the participants in this
Conference will have visited and which is slated for restoration
by the Penang Heritage Trust. While the debate continues as to the date
it was built, we can use numerous Gazette references to the estate and
Suffolk House itself to build up some account of how the House was used
and its function within elite Penang during the first quarter of the
19th century. Suffolk House was both a residence and a function hall
for many of the Penang governors.
A few references will suffice to show the sort of material
which can be drawn on to illustrate the history of the House. The
Gazette of 16 April 1825 carries an invitation from Charles Deane, the
Governor's Aide-de-Camp inviting "His Majesty's and the Honorable Company's
Civil, Naval and Military Servants" to dinner on 23 April "To celebrate
His Majesty's Birth Day". The notice was dated "Suffolk, 9 April 1825"
and it was likely that the dinner was also held there. In January 1829,
we read "On Thursday last, being New Year's Day, the Honorable the Governor
and Mrs Fullerton, gave a splendid ball and supper at Suffolk Park which
was numerously attended."79 Later that year, on the Governor's
return from leave, the Gazette informs us: "The Honorable the Governor,
Mrs Fullerton and Family landed shortly after the Nereid anchored,
and proceeded to Suffolk Park."8081
In his Penang Views volume, Lim Chong Keat noted that
"A separate work on the town planning history [of Penang] would
be needed, based on further research."82 While the paintings,
drawing and maps contained within his volume provide an important avenue
for understanding the urban development of George Town, any such study
will certainly gain through the collection and analysis of the invaluable
references to roads, buildings and urban facilities contained in diverse
references within the Prince of Wales Island Gazette.
A death notice in 1820, recorded: "At
Suffolk, on Monday 23d Instant, the Infant Daughter of The Honorable
W.E. Phillips."
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(v)
Penang Society
The society which developed in Penang from the 1780s
was a diverse one, ethnically and otherwise. The ethnic diversity
is reflected in the figures Wong Lin Ken provides for the populations
of the various communities in Penang over the first third of the 19th
century.83 The Prince of Wales Island Gazette concerned itself
mainly with a population which has basically ceased to exist in Penang
-- the British/European community, and it is thus this community for
which we have most information. If we are to accept the figures cited
by Wong Lin Ken, the number of this community ranged between 1,000 and
1,500 over the period during which the Gazette was published, and constituted
between about 2 and 4 percent of the total population. It was certainly
a far from homogenous community, comprising administrators, military
personnel, traders, sailors, missionaries, tradesmen, and spouses of
diverse social standing within the societies from which they came. Many
of the major figures in the settlement, particularly the merchants, were
Scottish, as they were to be when the British settled in Hong Kong half
a century later.
The socially prominent amongst the British/European
community appear frequently in the pages of the Gazette, in jury
and probate administration notices, in commercial notices, in details
of social events and advertisements. The less socially prominent are
generally ignored.
There must have been some concerns about the growth
in an "unacceptable" European population, primarily "country traders",
as in March 1808, there was published in the Gazette a Government
Advertisement signed by T.S. Raffles which noted: "Notice is hereby
given that all Europeans not in the service of His Majesty or the Honorable
East India Company, now residing on Prince of Wales Island, are required
to deliver in to the Office of the Secretary of Government, on or before
Wednesday, the 23d instant, a return showing the license or authority
on which they severally reside within the limits of the East India Company's
exclusive trade...."84 Here we have an early example of immigration
regulations, limiting those who come could and reside within the limits
of East India Company jurisdiction.
As the expatriate society developed, so did the social
activities which they engaged in and thus advertised in the Gazette.
The beginnings of a social and intellectual life among the British
of Penang was reflected in notices of masons' meetings85,
a Prince of Wales Island Club and other social gatherings. By the 1820s,
Penang had an amateur theatre group which performed regularly86,
and the Gazette was running book reviews. In January 1830, someone
who signed himself "Y'' submitted to the Gazette a "Prospectus for
a Literary Society at Penang'', which he urged be based on the Asiatic
Society in Calcutta, but it does not appear that any such society was
established as a result.
The other communities of Penang did not receive as much
attention in the Gazette as their British counterparts. Within
the Islamic community,87 there was obviously a number
of members who were quite prominent. One "Tuan Syed Hussen" is noted
as giving several dinners and parties attended by the Governor and
up to 70 of the other social elite of the settlement.88
This is presumably Tengku Said Hussain, one of the founders of the Acheen
Street Mosque.89 Another prominent figure was the Tomby
Sahib, mentioned above, who was a member of the Committee of Assessors
and therefore a major land owner in 1806. The frequent movement of members
of the Marican and the Maydin (Maydeen)90 families between
Acheen (Aceh), Nagore and Malacca, as recorded in the shipping lists,
suggests wide-ranging family business networks, and reflects the importance
of the Penang-Aceh linkages in the early 19th century. The members
of these families were some of the first to settle in the Acheen Street
area. Less prominent persons were named as ship captains and in court
reports. Landowners are often mentioned when land is being described,
such as in an advertisement in 1808 of a "piece of ground" at Tulloh
Ayer Rajah, bounded on the east by Abdul Momin's ground and to the south
by Meer Hussein's ground.91 Bapa Pootee (Bapak Putih) was
also named in various advertisements and appears to have been a major
landowner in Tanjong. Occasionally there is reference to the visit of
members of the Sultan of Kedah's family members, and in August 1819, we
read of the arrival in Penang of the "Raja of Salangore'' and his entourage
of 67 persons. No reason is assigned for the latter's trip, with his
party being simply noted in the arrivals section of the shipping list.
One Maharaja Setia was leasing 22 shops in Beach Street from the estate
of James Scott in 1810.92
There is of course also mention of members of diverse
Indian communities. Sometimes, these are hugely wealthy merchants,
such as Cauder Meydeen, the Kapitan Keling, or Indian Kapitan, under
Governor Leith.93 Others were less socially prominent,
such as the Bengal convicts Aukeel Mahomed, Chaunder, Surroop Dome,
Shaik Oustan, and Ruggoo Buddeah who were sentenced to death in
1810 for burglary and murder.94 Others are just lumped under
the collective term "Chulia". Firm identification of the ethnicity
of many people mentioned in the Gazette is difficult, but some
distinctly Tamil names can be gleaned. A Sheriff's Notice in 1809
involved the sale of a piece of land originally belonging to Ballamootoo.95
Members of the Parsee community can also be identified. The letters
of administration to the estate of a prominent member of the community
-- Dadaboy Sorabjee -- are advertised in the Gazette of 15 October 1808.
In the early years of the Gazette, while some Chinese
persons were mentioned in news reports as winners of the revenue
farm monopolies, very little attention was paid to other aspects
of Chinese society. The difficulty of identifying Chinese people from
the Gazette also lies in the fact that the names by which the British
knew the Chinese were not necessarily the names by which they were known
within the Chinese community. Even family names are not constant. In an
advertisement referring to letters of administration for Cong How, it is
recorded the letters of administration be granted to his brother Hoo Han.96
These "brothers" share no common surname here, and thus identifying them
with persons known from other sources will be difficult.
Notices of land sales and land holdings are another
source for information on the Chinese of Penang. One notice in
1806 read: "Notice of disposal by way of lottery of a piece of land
with an upper-roomed brick dwelling and out houses, situated at the
south side of China Street, bounded to the eastward by Teiqua and Hongbow's
grounds, on the westward by King Street, on the northward by China Street,
on the southward by China Baba Ho's grounds. Estimate at 31 square jumbas.
Lately occupied by Mr Johannes Sarkis. A total of 75 tickets at 40 Spanish
dollars each."97 By piecing together such notices, it might
be possible to reconstruct Chinese land ownership, at least in Tanjong.
Again, as for the other communities, Chinese persons appear frequently
in the law court reports for a range of offences. A number of Chinese ship
captains are also mentioned in the shipping lists.
Otherwise, Chinese persons named in the Gazette are
the elite of the community. This is even more so on occasions such
as occurred in 1824, when the Chinese community of Penang presented
to Sir Ralph Rice prior to his departure from Penang an address, enclosed
in an ivory case. A translation of the address is provided and the
names of the persons who submitted it are also given.98 These
persons would likely have been at the very pinnacle of Chinese society
in Penang at this time.
The emergence of the Baba community can be observed
from the use of the term Nyonya and Baba in some of notices relating
to Letters of administration. For example, one dated 13 October 1809,
noted that the estate and effects of Ongoo, deceased, are to be
granted to "Nonia Tchoo", his widow. The Baba Ho noted above is a
further example.
In order to control the respective communities, the
East India Company administrators appointed community heads who
would be responsible to the administration for the actions of members
of that community and for maintaining tranquility within that community.
These Capitans/Kapitans were usually of great social or commercial standing.99
Francis Light appointed someone called "Checka" as the first Kapitan
Cina in 1787.100 Governor Leith later employed Kapitans
for the Islamic community, the Chinese community and the Indian community,
providing them with more formal letters of appointment and a range of
formal duties. 101 This appears to have been the system
in place in 1810 when the following notice appeared in the Gazette:
This is to give notice that it is agreed, at a meeting
of the inhabitants of Prince of Wales Island, of the Mahometan Faith,
that it is necessary to have an intelligent person well versed in
the Laws of the Koran, at the head of their sect, to settle such disputes
as may arise respecting their Marriages and descent of property, according
to their religion, and also to give such information to the Court
of Judicature, concerning the usages of Mahometans, as from time to
time may be necessary; -- we have therefore unanimously fixt on, and
nominated Seyd Allie to be Khaulle102 and Cauzee103,
placing him at the head of our sect.104
To what degree this person was representative of or
accepted by the Islamic community is difficult to assess, but it
appears that through this advertisement, the British were accepting
Seyd Allie as the representative of the Islamic population of the
island.
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(vi)
Educational Institutions
From the earliest days of the settlement at Prince of
Wales Island, there would have been a demand for education for
the children of the various communities. The Gazette provides useful
information on some of the institutions which were established to provide
instruction to the children of the island. For the administrators
and merchants, there was always the option of educating their children
in Britain or in India and the Gazettes carried advertisements for
such schools. We read in the issue of 9 December 1809 of the "Terms of
Mrs Eliza Fay's School at Asburnham House, Blackheath, near London" offering
education for 40 guineas per annum. Those people who wanted their children
closer to Penang could choose to have them educated in the Classical
School in Calcutta, which advertised in the issue of 30 June, 1810. In
Penang itself, well before the establishment of Penang Free School, generally
understood to be the oldest school in Penang, there were a number of small
"schools" established, and these are recorded within the pages of the
Gazette. In April 1806, on the front page of the Gazette, under the heading
"School", Peter James Hart advertised that he had "opened a school in
Old Gaol Street, for the purpose of teaching Children in Reading and
Writing the English Language, and Accounts."105 In 1807, a
Mr T. Cullum advised the public that he was opening an "Academy" at 28
China Street "for the instruction of Children in the English Language".106
These "schools" would have educated only small numbers of students, and
the need for education facilities for the growing population is reflected
in accounts found within the pages of this newspaper.
The issue of 17 February 1816 carried an "Address to
the Public in behalf of a school to be established in Prince of Wales
Island'', which comprised a call by a group of residents noting their
desire "That the school may be open to the reception of all children
of the island, of every description, whose parents are willing to submit
them to the rules of the institution." It further noted that "It will
be the first objective of the Institution to provide for the education
of such children, as would otherwise be bred up in idleness and consequent
vice, and without any means of obtaining instruction either in useful
learning or in any manual employment, and to implant in them the early
habits of Industry, Order and Good Conduct." This heralded the beginnings
of Penang Free School. The school was subsequently established and
on 18 October 1817, the Gazette carried an Advertisement which noted:
The Committee entrusted with the formation and management
of the Prince of Wales Island Free School, feeling desirous of now
submitting to the public a report on the state of the school and of
the committee's proceedings, requests a general meeting of the subscribers
at large at the School House on Wednesday next the 3rd Instant, at
twelve o'clock, when the present committee proposes to resign its trust
and directors will be elected for the management of the school agreeably
to the regulations.
References to the school continue throughout the issues
of the Gazette. In 1819, we read in the pages of the Gazette a tender
notice seeking bids to build a schoolhouse for the Free School. Papers
of 1827 indicate that the school was still seeking funds and had opened
an orphanage and a boarding school.
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(vii)
Hybridity in Penang
In any society where diverse cultural traditions coexist,
hybridity emerges in diverse forms. Tan Sooi Beng will be speaking
on hybridity during this conference, with specific references to
musical and drama forms. But Penang has been marked by other forms
of hybridity since its earliest days. The Baba/Nyonya phenomenon mentioned
above is one such melding.
One of the foremost manifestations of hybridity which
has extended right into the present is the language known as Malaysian
English, which is marked by specific phonological, syntactical and
lexical characteristics not seen in other forms of English. While
newspapers are not appropriate places to search for phonological variety
in language, through careful reading of the Gazette, it is possible
to see the early entry of various new lexical items into the language
which was to become a lingua franca of the colonial and semi-colonial
peninsula.
Many of the non-original English terms which appeared
in the pages of the Gazette were brought to Penang from India. Land
areas were quoted in jumba (a land measure of about 12 feet), while
merchants stored products in their "godowns".107 We read
in the Gazette that the elite lived in "pucka-built" "bungalows"
with "verandahs". In the issue of 8 October 1808, (Vol. 3, No 137) a
government advertisement sought fifty "laxas" of bricks, and fifty
"coyans" of "chunam", words all brought from India by the British.
Malay terms were also absorbed into POW Island English
in order to name and describe things which were new to the British
or for which no precise English equivalent existed. We read of houses
made of "mirbow" (= merbau) wood, and of a quit rent of two "copongs
per orlong"108 The issue of 2 May 1807 includes references
to "catchang", "catty", "attap" and "paddy", while a punishment of
"one dozen stripes of the rattan" is noted in the issue of 19 April 1806.
Some of these terms have been adopted in global Englishes,
some other terms have remained in use just in Malaysian English,
while others (such as jumbas) have fallen out of use. The earliest
newspaper of the island thus provides a valuable resource (probably
more so than official documents) for studying some of the earliest
linguistic interactions on Penang and the beginnings of Malaysian English.
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The
end of the Gazette and Evolution of Newspapers in the Peninsula
As noted above, the last issue of the Prince of Wales
Island Gazette, under that name, was published by Mr Cox on Saturday
7 July 1827 (Vol. 13, No. 27). Cecil K. Byrd, who has conducted the
most detailed study of early printing in the peninsula, asserts that
while the Gazette was subject to censorship by the East India Company,
"it must be concluded that the Prince of Wales Island Gazette ceased
publication not from government pressure, but due to financial exigencies.109
Almost a year later, the weekly newspaper was revived, as The Government
Gazette. Prince of Wales Island, Singapore and Malacca, and this publication
extended until January 1830.
However, prior to the publication of The Government
Gazette, a new newspaper The Penang Register and Miscellany made
its appearance on 22 August 1827, just 8 days after the last issue
of the Gazette. Owned by Norman Macalister McIntyre and edited by
William Balhetchet, the newspaper had a fractious relationship with
the Company and it was closed down on 20 September 1828, just a year
after it had begun, for breaching censorship orders from the Company.
Other competition was also growing in the other settlements
in the Straits. The Singapore Chronicle,110111
was established in the same year in the town after which it was named.
In the late 1820s, an obvious rivalry existed between the Government
Gazette and the Singapore Chronicle, and this also reflected the rivalry
between the ports they represented. Following the closure of the Government
Gazette, Penang did not see another newspaper until 1838, when the Penang
Gazette and Straits Chronicle was established. This newspaper had one
of the longest runs of any newspaper in the peninsula, remaining in
press under a range of names until 1968!
Newspapers for other communities only appeared half
a century after the closure of the Gazette. The Malay-language
Jawi Peranakkan was established in Singapore in 1876, while the
Tamil Olaga Naisan was first published in Penang in 1887. The first
Chinese newspapers also appeared only in the 1880s.
Singapore's first
newspaper, was published in January 1824, a Commercial Register and
Advertiser was added in 1826, and a newspaper named the Malacca Observer
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The
Role of Newspapers
The establishment of a newspaper in any society inevitably
brings great change to the ways in which information and ideas are
transmitted within that society. Newspapers-regular public journals
providing news of interest to the society--date only from the early 1600s.
The early newspapers in Europe were often subject to the rigours of
state suppression and licensing, and newspapers in Britain won the right
to report the activities of parliament only in the late 18th century,
not long before the POW Island Gazette was founded. Government censorship
was part of the Gazette's experience throughout its existence.
For many societies, the emergence of a newspaper culture
was associated with the rise of civil society, or at least civic
engagement. This was certainly so in Europe, where the emergence in
the eighteenth century of civil society as an autonomous realm of public
opinion, was produced by and fed through newspapers. However, the introduction
of newspapers to the societies of Southeast Asia was necessarily, and
in many ways, a very different social phenomenon to that it was in the societies
of Europe.
The Gazette was run by members of a dominant community
in Penang, for the elite of the island, and it was censored by the
East India Company. As such, it was certainly never going to be an
organ representing some "autonomous realm of public opinion". Despite
this, it inevitably had huge, but perhaps not quantifiable, effects on
the societies of the Straits and the peninsula more generally.
The significance of newspapers to the development of
the societies of the peninsula should not be under-estimated. Prior
to the emergence of newspapers, people could regularly communicate
ideas only through conversation or by letters. Information was essentially
exchanged only among individuals or small groups. The hand-presses on
which the Prince of Wales Island Government Gazette would have been
printed allowed ideas as well as information on local and foreign events
and markets to be distributed swiftly and regularly throughout society.
This was thus a change which spurred much other change, and by which
these societies were tied into global networks and new ideological systems.
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Conclusion
Back in 1929, F.G. Stevens wrote that "a detailed history
of the administration of Penang from 1786-1826 has yet to be written."112
This is still true, not only of the administrative history of early
Penang, but for all aspects of early Penang society. This will undoubtedly
change in the coming decades, as increasing numbers of sources become
available in more user-friendly forms. An essential tool, if people
are to be encouraged to use the Gazette and other early newspapers for
researching the history of Penang, is an index. The compilation of
such an index will be a very long-term task, one that has just begun.
The beginnings of an index for the first few months of the Prince of Wales
Island Gazette can be seen in the Appendix to this paper.
The history of Malayan/Malaysian newspapers is one of
the most vibrant and linguistically diverse press histories in
the world. It is a story which, given its linguistic diversity, cannot
really be told in any single telling. But perhaps, more important
than the history of the newspapers themselves, is the material which
they contain and the accounts of past ages which they can provide
to us. The historical newspapers now kept in the Arkib Negara (National
Archives) and the libraries of Malaysian universities contain within
them the material for constructing and retelling many histories.
If there is one point which the materials contained
within the Prince of Wales Island Gazette underscore time and again,
it is that what occurred within Penang in its first 50 years of existence
-- the systems it established, the practices it followed, and the hybridities
it created -- were to be followed (and subsequently modified) by
the various polities that succeeded the East India Company in the peninsula.
It can truly be said that early Penang was the cradle of the administrative,
legal and judicial systems which would later came to mark Singapore,
the Straits Settlements, the Federation of Malaya and subsequently Malaysia.
As such, no one can hope to understand Malaysia's present without some
comprehension of the earliest decades of Penang.
Returning now to the title- in what ways did the Prince
of Wales Island Gazette constitute "new ways of knowing"? Firstly,
as a newspaper -quite a new medium even for those from Europe-- it
provided a new form of knowledge dispersal for the mainly European
readers it served. Further, for all the peoples of Penang and the
rest of the peninsula, it provided a new way of knowing about worlds
well beyond Southeast Asia. Finally, for researchers today, the Prince
of Wales Island Gazette provides us with new ways of looking at and knowing
about the development of Penang in its first half-century.#
Go to the top
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Endnotes
63 Attention should be drawn
to the inscription "A Town here" noted in the sketch map of
"Po Pinang" made in 1763 by Captain Walter Alves. See Lim Chong Keat,
Penang Views p. 19, Fig 5.
64 The use of land as a resource by the administration
was particularly inept. Revenue from land remained a very small proportion
of total revenue for the island, declining from 4 percent in 1805-06
to 1.1 percent in 1823-24. See Wong Lin Ken's "The Revenue Farms of
Prince of Wales Island 1805-30" Table V.
65 Francis Light also appears to have acquired quite
some land for himself, as attested by the claims against the Telok
Jelutong lands within his estate (including "Salisbury Plain")
by his children, detailed in the Gazette of 10 June 1815.
66 The amount of Penang land acquired by this single
individual James Scott is astonishing. We are able to quantify it
by the fact that in 1811, several years after his death, his properties
were subject to Sheriff's Sales following claims by creditors such
as Inchee Meydeen and Francis Light's children. The Sheriff's Sales notices
in the pages of the Gazette detail his holdings in Beach Street (Gazette
of 29 September 1810), in George Town and Soonghy Teeram (Gazette of 23
February 1811), George Town (Gazette of 3 August 1811), Aier Etam, Campong
Pulo Penang and Tulloh Aier Raja (Gazette of 10 August 1811), and Soonghy
Teeram and Soonghy Cluan (Gazette of 24 August 1811). The last-mentioned
were his James Town properties. The listings of properties owned by Mr
Scott took several pages of each issue.
67 See Lim Chong Keat, Penang Views p. 15, Fig 3.
68 F.G. Stevens, "A Contribution to an early history
of Prince of Wales' Island", JMBRAS Vol. VII, no III, pp. 377-414.
See p. 378.
69 Mount Airy was the area west of what became Leith
Street Ghaut, extending to what is now the E&O Hotel.
70 Apparently only 28 grants were issued prior
to Light's death in 1794.
71 The grant of this land by Francis Light to Mr
Simson is also noted in F.G. Stevens, "Early History of Penang Island",
p. 391.
72 F.G. Stevens, however notes that "The description
of the land comprised in the first series of grants, issued up to
the year 1800 are very rough; and in the absence of any maps of the
period, it is extremely difficult to identify the early grants by reference
to the descriptions they contain." See Early History of Prince of Wales
Island (p. 393).
73 Stevens, writing in 1929, advised however that
many of the later land records were still available in the Land Office
at that time (and illustrates on p. 406 a map from Grant 1720 which
included the land on which Suffolk House was built). He also speaks
of a "Purcell" map, detailing all the land grants pre-1808 and held by
the Penang Library. However, it appears that the Land Office records
disappeared during World War II.
74 For which see Lim Chong Keat, Penang Views, p.
15.
75 Further details of the early roads can found
in F.G. Stevens "Early History of Prince of Wales Island" pp. 389-392.
76 Government Gazette, Vol. I, No. 11 (10 May 1806).
77 See Note 43 above.
78 Government Gazette, 1 August 1829.
79 Government Gazette, 3 January 1829.
80 Government Gazette, 12 December 1829.
81 Prince of Wales Island Gazette, 25 October, 1820.
82 Lim Chong Keat, Penang Views, p. 15.
83 Wong Lin Ken's "The Revenue Farms of Prince of
Wales Island 1805-30", Table VII following page 100. The figures
must be subject to some scepticism given the manner and methods by
which they were obtained and the lack of definitions of the categories
into which people were divided.
84 Prince of Wales Island Gazette, 19 March 1808
(Vol. 3, No. 108).
85 A notice recording the meeting of the "Neptune
Lodge No. 344" and the office holders elected appears in the Gazette
of 25 December 1813
86 See the Gazette of 3 January 1829 for an example
of a theatre advertisement.
87 The term "Islamic" is preferred here as often
the only identification of these people is their name, and it is impossible
to determine if the person is Malay, Mandailing, Javanese, Bugis,
Arab or Indian Muslim. On rare occasions a person's ethnic affiliation
is given, as in a sale of a piece of land included in the estate of
"Hadgee Esmaal, Buggese" in the Prince of Wales Island Gazette of 18
Sept 1809.
88 See Prince of Wales Island Gazette, 16 July 1808
(Vol. 3, No. 125). The Gazette of 9 June 1810 also records
that on the occasion of the birthday of George III, "Tuan Koo Syad
Hussain" provided a sum of 6000 Spanish dollars to pay off the debts
of all those held in jail as debtors as well as those in the small debt
court.
89 Sarnia Hayes Hoyt in her Old Penang (p. 30) quotes
an account of a party hosted by Tengku Syed Hussain. The POW Island
Gazette she cites is that of 7 December 1806, but no such issue exists.
Presumably the account exists in another issue. Lee Kam Hing ( The
Sultanate of Aceh, p. 79) mentions some background to this Syed Hussain
Aideed and his business activities.
90 Cauder/Cader Maydeen and his family members were
Muslims but were also considered to represent the Indian community
of Penang. See Note below.
91 The Government Gazette, 24 September 1808 (Vol.
3, No. 135).
92 POW Island Gazette, 29 September 1810.
93 A Sheriff's notice of 1810 records the sale of
a range of godowns, occupied by Coonghy Terry and seized by the
instance of Cauder Meydeen, against the representatives of one Moosau
Muckie. (Gazette of 29 September 1810). Inchee Meydeen, who may well
have been the same person, was also one of the major creditors of James
Scott when he died.
94 POW Island Gazette, 12 May 1810.
95 POW Island Gazette, 4 November 1809.
96 POW Island Gazette, 1 July 1809.
97 POW Island Government Gazette, 28 June 1806.
98 The names given are: Neang Bee Kee, Kam Ee, Le
Twat, Lim Seung, Koo Beng San, Choo Koo, Koo Cheng, Seay Suy, Ho
To, Lim Tong, Koo Chuan, Seay Naou Say, Tin Tac Gam, Le Kow E, Seay
Chong Boo, Le Eng Au, Seay Chan Heen, Tsae Kim Seng, Tin Som, Lim Thong,
Seay Yem, and Ho Mooe. Some of these names can be identified with
those given in the 1824 inscription erected on the rebuilding of the
Guang-fu-gong, elsewise known as the Guan-yin-ting or the Pitt Street
Temple, the oldest Chinese temple in Penang. These are listed in Chinese
epigraphic materials in Malaysia / collected, annotated, and edited
by Wolfgang Franke and Chen Tieh Fan, with the assistance of [others],
Vol. 2, pp. 532-33. Neang Bee Kee is certainly Liang Mei-ji, the
first name in the inscription, a member of the temple committee and,
according to Franke, "the first Master of Ch'ing-y n t'ing, Malacca". We
can thus see the close links between the Chinese communities in Penang
and Malacca in this period. Kam Ee in the Gazette was likely Gan Shi-yu
or the inscription, another member of the temple committee, Lim Seung was
possibly Lin Gao-sheng, and Koo Beng San undoubtedly Qiu Ming-shan, another
member of the temple committee. Seay Suy was identical with Xie Sui, a further
member of the temple committee, Ho To is He Dao, Lim Tong was Lin Dong and
Seay Naou Say was Xie Ou-shui. Seay Chong Boo was Xie Zong-wu, Tsae
Kim Seng was Cai Jin-sheng, Tin Som was Chen Xiang, Lim Thong possible Lin
Zhuan, Seay Yem was Xie Xian, and Ho Mooe was He Mei.
99 This system had been in place in the port polities
of Southeast Asia for centuries, and regardless of whether it was
a sultan, a raja, a king, the East India Company or the VOC who was
the political ruler, they appointed these "kapitans" to control and
police their own communities. Some historical background to the system
can be seen in the Foreword to C.S. Wong's A Gallery of Chinese Kapitans.
100 Also known as Che Kay. See George Leith, A short
Account of the Settlement, Produce and Commerce of Prince of Wales
Island, in the Straits of Malacca, London 1804, p. 68. While there have
been a number of well-known studies of the Kapitan Cina in Malacca,
there has been much less research conducted on the Chinese Kapitans of
Penang. In his work A Gallery of Chinese Kapitans (Ministry of Culture,
Singapore 1963), C.S. Wong records what is so far known of the Chinese
Kapitans, but there is still much confusion about the leadership of the
Chinese community during Penang's first fifty years. The Gazette will likely
help to resolve some of the uncertainties.
101 See Tregonning, The British in Malaya, pp. 45-46,
52-53.
102 Apparently a variant of "Caliph" (Arabic: Khalifa),
which bore the meaning of governor or superintendent in Mughal India.
See Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, pp. 146-147.
103 Kadi. Also romanised as Cazee, Kazi or
Kajee in British India, as the letter "zwad" with which it is spelt
is pronounced as a "z" in India. For some examples of government-appointed
kadi in British India, see Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson,
pp. 177-180.
104 POW Island Gazette, 2 June 1810.
105 The Government Gazette, 5 April 1806 (Vol. 1,
No. 6).
106 Prince of Wales Island Gazette, 31 October 1807
(Vol. 2, No. 88).
107 Apparently originally from the Telugu "gidangi".
See Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, Fourth edition, New
Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal, 1984. See pp. 381-82.
108 POW Island Government Gazette, Vol. 3, No. 147
(17 December 1808).
109 Cecil K. Byrd, Early Printing in the Straits
Settlements 1806-1858, p. 4.
110 For details of which, see C.A. Gibson-Hill,
"The Singapore Chronicle, 1824-37", JMBRAS 26:1 (1953) pp. 175-99.
111 Edited by J. H. Moor. See C.A. Gibson-Hill,
"The Singapore Chronicle" pp 187-90 for some background to this
newspaper and to Mr. Moor.
112 F.G. Stevens, "A Contribution to an early history
of Prince of Wales' Island", JMBRAS Vol. VII, no III, pp. 377-414.
See p. 377.
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