AT THE EASTERN end of Northam Road (now Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah), within the weathered walls of the Old Protestant Cemetery, rests Captain Francis Light, who in 1786 established Britain’s first settlement in the Strait of Malacca on the jungle-clad island of Pulo Pinang. Although Thomas Stamford Raffles’ name is memorialised in many places and institutions in the younger sister settlement of Singapore, Francis Light’s legacy in Penang is more modest. His name only lives on in a street near Fort Cornwallis and in a school on Perak Road.
The Northam Road Government English School
The origins of Francis Light School—which hosted historical events leading to our country’s independence—lies not at Perak Road, but a minute’s walk west of his tomb. There, one can find the hulking carcass of what was once a magnificent building, No. 11, Northam Road, known in Hokkien as the goh chan lau (five storey mansion)—the residence of towkay Cheah Tek Soon.
