Protestant Cemetery in Penang, Penang

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Get directions Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah (Northam Road)
Penang, Penang Malaysia

Coordinates: 5.42258, 100.33340
Cemetery ID:

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About these numbers These percentages indicate the number of Find a Grave memorials that have a grave photo or GPS coordinates. We don't know the total number of burials in a cemetery, so we cannot calculate a percentage of those with memorials, photos or GPS coordinates.

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This was the first cemetery to be consecrated after Capt. 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 VanSomeren in 1892. After that, the cemetery was closed and subsequent Christian burials have been carried out in the Western Road Cemetery.

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).

The cemetery also contains 12 Chinese graves, refugees of the Taiping Rebellion.

Of around 500 grave markers, about 20% 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. There are also many unmarked graves here.

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