page_title: Fort Cornwallis
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Fort Cornwallis / History
caption_attribution_description: The Map of Early Penang Showing the Malay Town on the South of the Town Center by Popham 1799
context_page_description: Fort Cornwallis is a bastion fort in George Town, Penang, Malaysia, built by the British East India Company in the late 18th century. Fort Cornwallis is the largest standing fort in Malaysia. The fort never engaged in combat during its operational history.
  It was named after the then Lieutenant-General The 2nd Earl Cornwallis, the Governor-General of Bengal at the time of the fort's construction, who had also been involved in the American War of Independence. Lord Cornwallis was later created, in 1792, The 1st Marquess Cornwallis, and he was promoted to being a full-ranking General in the British Army in 1793. Lord Cornwallis later served, from 1798 to 1801, as the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, where he overseen the implementation of the Act of Union.
context_section_description: Captain Francis Light, R.N., took possession of Penang Island from the Sultan of Kedah in 1786 and built the original fort. It was a nibong (a Malay term meaning 'palm trunk') stockade with no permanent structures, covering an area of 417.6 square feet (38.80 m²). The fort's purpose was to protect Penang from pirates and Kedah. Captain Light, who died in 1794, renamed Penang Island as Prince of Wales Island in 1786.
  In 1804, after the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars, and during Colonel R.T. Farquhar's term as Governor of Prince of Wales Island (also known as Penang Island), Indian convict labourers rebuilt the fort using brick and stone. Fort Cornwallis was completed in 1810, at the cost of $80,000, during Norman Macalister’s term as Governor of Penang. A moat 9 metres wide by 2 metres deep once surrounded the fort but it was filled in the 1920s due to a malaria outbreak in the area.
  Even though the fort was originally built for the British military, its function, historically, was more administrative than defensive. For example, the judge of the Supreme Court of Penang, Sir Edmond Stanley, an Anglo-Irish barrister, was first housed at Fort Cornwallis when the court opened on 31 May 1808. During the 1920s Sikh police of the Straits Settlements occupied the fort.
  Royal Navy personnel under the direction of Rev. Peter Brown conducted an archaeological survey in July/August 1970. The fort was gazetted on 8 September 1977, under the Antiquities Act 168/1976, as an Ancient Monument and Historic site. Today, it has become one of Penang's prime tourist attractions.
caption: 1799 map of George Town, with Fort Cornwallis at the northeastern tip of the promontory.
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