Francis Light


Francis Light was a British explorer and the founder of the British colony of Penang and its capital city of George Town in 1786.
He and Martina Rozells were the parents of William Light, founder of Adelaide in South Australia.

Early years

Light was baptised in Dallinghoo, Suffolk, England on 15December 1740. His mother was given as Mary Light. Taken in by a relative, the nobleman William Negus, he attended Woodbridge Grammar School from 1747. Researchers initially believed Light to be the illegitimate son of William Negus, but according to author Noël Francis Light Purdon, the six-times great-grandson of Francis Light, Negus received payment for looking after him and acting as his guardian throughout his education.

Career

Naval career

Light began his service in the Royal Navy as a surgeon's servant on HMS Mars in February 1754. He started an apprenticeship in the Royal Navy in 1759 on HMS Captain, before being transferred after a few months to the newly-commissioned HMS Dragon. He was a midshipman on HMS Arrogant in 1761 before ending his service with the navy in 1763.
It was in the navy that he met James Scott, who would later play an important part in his life and business dealings.

In the colonies

His movements between 1763 and 1765 are not recorded, but it seems that he managed to amass enough of a fortune to bequeath a considerable amount of property in a will to William Negus and three other men.

Thalang, Siam

In 1765 Light embarked the East India Company's ship Clive, captained by John Allen, bound for Madras and Bombay. In India, he secured command of a "country ship" belonging to Madras trading firm Jourdain, Sulivan & Desouza, the Speedwell. Setting up a base in Thalang in Siam, he traded there, in Aceh and the Malay Peninsula, learning the local languages. Basing himself in Thalang, he met Martina Rozells, and together they set up a trading post in Kuala Kedah. He soon gained an influential position with the Sultan of Kedah.
For about ten years he had his headquarters in Thalang, where he revived a failed French trading post. While in Thalang he learned to speak and write several languages, including Malay and Thai, and became family friends with Than Phu Ying Chan and her husband, the Governor of Thalang. Later, in 1785, he warned the island administrators of an imminent Burmese attack. Light's warning enabled the islanders, led by Chan and her sister Mook, to prepare for Thalang's defence and subsequently repel the Burmese invasion.
In 1785, after the death of the Governor of Thalang, his widow Pia Pimons and other relatives proposed that Light assume the position; however the King of Siam, Rama II, thwarted the proposal.

Penang

Light's interest in Penang had begun in 1771, when he proposed the idea of a British settlement in the neighbourhood of the Malay Peninsula to Warren Hastings, the East India Company's Governor of the Presidency of Fort William. He suggested that the island of Penang might serve as a "convenient magazine for the Eastern trade" but at that time his idea gained no ground.
In 1776–7, Light arranged a large shipment of firearms for the Siamese Kingdom of Thonburi, ruled by Taksin the Great.
Whereas his previous suggestion had brought no result, following the war that ended in the Peace of 1783 with France and Spain during which Britain had struggled with France for naval superiority, Light's suggestion took on a new significance. In 1786, on behalf of the British East India Company, Light leased Penang Island from Sultan Abdullah Mukarram Shah, for the price of 6,000 Spanish dollars per annum.
Under the administration of Governor-general Sir John Macpherson, Light was entitled and put in charge of the settlement, styled Dewa Raja by the Malays, on 1 July 1786; thus marking the beginning of British expansion into the Malay States, and into British colonisation in Southeast Asia. The new colony was very sparsely populated at this time: it was described as "one vast jungle of nearly 107 square miles, with a population of only fifty-eight souls". Pirates had to be discouraged from landing, and forests were cleared. George Town was established, and when two EIC ships appeared on the coast, Light took the opportunity of inviting the ships and crews to attend the declaration of the new colony of Prince of Wales Island on 11 August 1786, being the eve of the Prince of Wales's birthday.
The Sultan, however, was bound under the Southeast Asian mandala political model in fealty to the King of Siam. Light had exceeded his authority with a promise of military aid should the Burmese or Siamese invade, despite the fact that Sultan Abdullah asked him not to land until the military aid had been confirmed in London. Thus, when the Sultan's land was invaded and no aid was forthcoming, the Sultan attempted to take back the island as a refuge in 1790.
The multicultural colony of Penang became extraordinarily successful from its inception and Light served as Superintendent of the settlement until his death in October 1794, apart from between 21 Nov 1789 and 9 Feb 1790, when John Glass acted in his place. By 1789 there were about 10,000 inhabitants, and by 1795, 20,000.
Accounts of his actions seem to indicate that he was a fair-minded and honourable man. In 1790, he asked for a higher salary, in order to allow him to live without having to engage in trade. This led to his business partnership with James Scott being dissolved. In 1794, he recommended that a proper system of justice should be instituted in Penang, as it should not be within the powers of the Superintendent to dispense "arbitrary judgement".

Death and legacy

Light died from malaria on 21 October 1794 and was buried at the Old Protestant cemetery at Northam Road in George Town. He remembered his friends James Scott, William Fairlie and Thomas Pegou in his will.
A bronze statue, sculpted by F.J. Wilcoxson and cast at Burton's Foundry in Thames Ditton, bears Francis Light's name but was actually modelled on the features of his son William, there being no portrait of Francis to use. Erected in 1936 to celebrate 150 years since George Town was founded, it stands at Fort Cornwallis in George Town.
Light Street, within the UNESCO World Heritage Site in George Town, is named after him. Convent Light Street, Penang's oldest girls' school, founded in 1852, is located along the street.
He was respected by his British peers as a fair and honourable man and admired for his achievements, which included keeping the Siamese and Dutch at bay. He was a skilled negotiator and cared for the welfare of the people both in his colony and old friends in Thalang, sending rice when the island was hit by famine. He spoke the local languages and partially assumed the local dress, earning the love of the residents of Penang.

Family

Martina Rozells

Light had three daughters and two sons with Martina Rozells, whose origins and status are the subject of debate. She has been variously recorded as being of Portuguese or French extraction on one side, and of Siamese or Malay on the other. She was also rumoured to have been a princess, possibly given to Light as a reward, or the island as her dowry, although other sources state that the princess was sent to enlist Light's aid on behalf of the Sultan. Two contemporaries of Light, historian William Marsden, and Captain Elisha Trapaud seem to confirm the story that she was of noble blood. However, John Crawford, later First Resident of Singapore, said in 1820 that Martina was not a princess, but a Portuguese woman from Siam, and Steuart points out that there is no evidence that Trapaud knew Light when the couple began living together. Other contemporary accounts name her as the daughter of the 19th Sultan of Kedah, by a lower-ranking wife of mixed Thai-Portuguese ancestry. She may have adopted her mother's name to emphasise her ancestry and "high birth". She was probably one of many Portuguese Eurasian Catholics who had fled religious persecution in southern Siam and to Kedah.
There were a number of Rozells registered at George Town in 1788. There was also a Martinha shown as being of Siam, with a son William, of Kedah. Steuart posits that Martina was the same person as the "Nonya" who took part in the earliest negotiations with the Sultan in 1770-1. This would support the idea that she was not a princess, but nevertheless had strong connections with both Siam and Kedah and therefore a useful person to employ in negotiations between the Sultan and the British at Aceh.
If they were legally married, Light did not declare it. However, it was against East India Company rules to marry a Catholic and, as Martina was Catholic, Light may have tried to avoid dismissal by never declaring his marriage. He did leave her his considerable property. Either way, they cohabited for at least 22 years before his death.
Light's business partners, James Scott and William Fairlie, were the executors of Light's will, and some versions of events have suggested that these two cheated Rozells out of some of her inheritance, namely their family residence and land, the Suffolk Estate. She did however inherit a bungalow in Penang. The EIC paid Rozells a pension, but she did not get justice with regard to her property in the British courts. Although she was regarded as Light's wife among the Eurasians and Thai community, she was not regarded as his official wife by the British.
Rozells married a John Timmer at a ceremony at the chapel in Fort Cornwallis in 1799.

Family life, offspring

Light and his family lived in the first home built on the Suffolk Estate, four west of George Town. Their home was described as a "simple Anglo-Indian Garden House style of timber and attap construction", built within his pepper estate.
His eldest son, Colonel William Light, was the first Surveyor General of the Colony of South Australia; William is famous for choosing the site of the colony's capital, Adelaide, and designing the layout of the streets and parks in the Adelaide city centre, North Adelaide and the Adelaide Park Lands.
The other son, Francis Lanoon Light II, was born in Penang in 1791, married a Javanese woman, Charlotte Aboni, with whom he had a daughter and two sons. He died in 1823. His descendants are the Capel family in Malaysia.
Their daughters were named Sarah, Mary and Ann. They all married in Calcutta. Sarah married General James Welsh, an EIC officer in the Madras Army. Mary married a wealthy indigo plantation owner, George Boyd, and Ann married a physician, Charles Hunter.
By 1818, Welsh observed that his wife and her siblings had seen all of their mother's property disappear.

In the arts

In October 2019, co-commissioned by Adelaide's OzAsia festival and Penang's George Town Festival, a play was created and staged by Australian writer/director Thomas Henning in collaboration with Malaysian duo TerryandTheCuz, named Light. Rather than presenting a straight historical narrative, the play explores the personal circumstances first of Light and his pivotal role in Penang's modern history, and then of his son William in Adelaide. The roles of the women in their lives are interrogated, as well as the various colonial, trade and personal ambitions of the British government, the East India Company and individuals in their lives. It shows how their lives were influenced by global politics, in particular the rise of the British Empire in the Eastern hemisphere. The life of Martina Rozells is also brought to life.

Footnotes

Cited sources