Old Protestant Cemetery, George Town

Old Protestant Cemetery

Grave of Capt. Francis Light
Details
Year established	1789
Country	Malaysia
Location	George Town, Penang
Type	Protestant cemetery

Old Protestant Cemetery, also known as Northam Road Cemetery (now Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah) is a Christian cemetery in George Town, Penang , Malaysia.

History and description

Northam Road Cemetery was the first cemetery to be consecrated after Captain Francis Light founded the Prince of Wales Island Settlement in 1786. The earliest known burial is H.D.D. Cunningham in 1789, and the latest is Cornelia Josephine Van Someren in 1892. After that, the cemetery was closed and subsequent Christian burials have been carried out in the Western Road Cemetery. The cemetery also contains 12 Chinese graves, refugees of the Taiping Rebellion. Of around 500 graves, over 25% are not identifiable due to weathering and damage. The tablets of many tombs have fallen off; some, which could not be matched to their tombs, are mounted on the south wall.

Behind this cemetery, accessible through a small door in the wall, is the adjacent Roman Catholic Cemetery.

Notables buried

Here can be found the graves of many prominent people involved in the history of Penang, including Capt. Francis Light and several governors such as John Alexander Bannerman, William Petrie and Philip Dundas. Other notable names are Rev. R.S. Hutchings, founder of the Penang Free School; Quintin Dick Thompson, brother-in-law of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles; James Scott, co-founder of Penang; George Samuel Windsor Earl, author of "The Eastern Seas"; Thomas Leonowens, husband of Anna Leonowens; and Maria Tarn Dyer Bausum, missionary and widow of Samuel Dyer (who is buried in Macau).

External links and references

• http://www.penang-traveltips.com/protestant-cemetery.htm