Mount Erskine: Penang’s Forgotten Flagstaff Hill – Part 2: The Pulo Tecoose Boat Establishment
By Eugene Quah
August 2022FEATUREThomas Prinsep’s 1824 painting of Mount Erskine is possibly
depicting a laskar guarding the Pulo Tecoose boarding boat
that was reported damaged that same year. The EIC had been
known to employ vessels “according to the Malay build” with an
overhanging “poop deck” for official port use.[a] The one in the
painting appears to be a Bugis-style padewakang vessel.[b] Photo by: Penang State Museum.
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THE MOUNT ERSKINE signal station was built for “the purpose of obtaining earlier communication with vessels entering the harbour”. Previously, incoming ships could only be boarded and inspected when they had already sailed into the Penang harbour. With the signal station now fully operational, Governor William Petrie ordered a significant change to the handling of ships entering the port to take effect on 31 July 1815.[1]For “greater efficiency”, the government would station a boarding boat, a “fast pulling Malacca boat”,...
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is an independent researcher who is working on a book about Tanjung Bungah and Tanjung Tokong. He rediscovered the joys of writing after moving back to Penang from abroad while on a hiatus from designing software.