The Prince of Wales Island Governor — that is, the government of Prince of Wales Island in its collective capacity, as distinct from any individual governor such as Bannerman, Phillips, Petrie or Fullerton — is the collective reference used in P. H. van der Kemp (1900) for the British administration at Penang whenever it acted as a body. The phrase “the Government of Prince of Wales’ Island” recurs in the official correspondence reproduced in the appendices, and Van der Kemp himself frequently uses it as shorthand for the settlement’s institutional voice.
The institutional reference
Penang — granted the formal style of “Prince of Wales Island” on its cession by the Raja of Quedah in 1786 — was administered, until 1867, by a Governor-in-Council responsible, through the Governor-General at Bengal (and after 1833 through the Governor-General of India in Council), to the Court of Directors of the East India Company. Decisions taken by the Governor of Penang with the advice of his Council were expressed, in official correspondence, as acts of “the Government of Prince of Wales’ Island” or “the Governor in Council of Prince of Wales’ Island.”
Van der Kemp cites, in Appendix 2, Raffles’s letter to the government secretary at Calcutta of 31 December 1819, which quotes from a despatch of the Governor in Council of Prince of Wales’ Island to the Court of Directors of 1 July 1819, in which the Penang government claimed to have had “as full a knowledge of the instructions of the Supreme Government on those matters as Sir Stamford Raffles himself had.” Raffles indignantly repudiated the imputation. The phrase is the standard form of reference for the Penang administration in the records.
Specific acts
Among the specific acts attributed in the article to the “Government of Prince of Wales’ Island” are: the proposal, in 1819, that a military force consisting of relieved divisions of the 20th regiment native infantry should follow the Raffles-Coombs mission to Acheh — a proposal that the mission “very properly protested against”; the taking up of ships, at considerable expense, for that purpose; the injunction conveyed to Said Akil when he proceeded to Deli that, having gone “contrary to the injunctions of the Government of Prince of Wales’ island, he is placed without the protection of the British Government in the event of his infringing the laws or injuring the inhabitants of that country”; and the dispatch of the Lucas mission to Telok Semawé in February 1821, of the Bellona mission in 1827–1828, and of Fullerton’s letter to the Sultan of Siak and his circular to nine Siak chiefs of 1828.
The institutional reference is also used by the Achehnese themselves. The Three Sagis in their letter to Penang of 4 December 1822 address themselves to “our friend the Honble the Governor of Penang” — i.e., to the Government of Prince of Wales Island in its collective capacity, since the formal addressee was W. E. Phillips in his official character.
Significance
Van der Kemp’s distinction between individual governors and the collective government matters for his argument. The institutional voice of Penang — in correspondence with Calcutta, with the Achehnese court, and with the Dutch at Batavia — is often at odds with the policy of the individual governor of the moment; and the continuity of that institutional voice, through the successive administrations of Petrie, Bannerman, Phillips and Fullerton, is one of the strands of his narrative. The “Prince of Wales Island Governor” of this article is, in effect, the corporate person of the Penang establishment — the addressee of grievances, the drawer-up of minutes, the authoriser of missions, and the signatory of treaties — across the entire period from the first Coombs mission of 1817 through the Bellona intervention of 1828.
See Also
- Penang
- Colonel John Alexander Bannerman
- W. E. Phillips
- Governor Petrie
- Robert Fullerton
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
- Lucas mission to Telok Semawé (February 1821)
- Bellona mission to Sumatra’s East Coast (1827-1828)
- Three Sagis’ letter to Penang (4 December 1822)
- Said Akil’s Deli adventure (1824-1828)
- Bengal
- Calcutta
Source
Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159–239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.
The Prince of Wales Island Governor — that is, the government of Prince of Wales Island in its collective capacity, as distinct from any individual governor such as Bannerman, Phillips, Petrie or Fullerton — is the collective reference used in P. H. van der Kemp (1900) for the British administration at Penang whenever it acted as a body. The phrase “the Government of Prince of Wales’ Island” recurs in the official correspondence reproduced in the appendices, and Van der Kemp himself frequently uses it as shorthand for the settlement’s institutional voice.
The institutional reference
Penang — granted the formal style of “Prince of Wales Island” on its cession by the Raja of Quedah in 1786 — was administered, until 1867, by a Governor-in-Council responsible, through the Governor-General at Bengal (and after 1833 through the Governor-General of India in Council), to the Court of Directors of the East India Company. Decisions taken by the Governor of Penang with the advice of his Council were expressed, in official correspondence, as acts of “the Government of Prince of Wales’ Island” or “the Governor in Council of Prince of Wales’ Island.”
Van der Kemp cites, in Appendix 2, Raffles’s letter to the government secretary at Calcutta of 31 December 1819, which quotes from a despatch of the Governor in Council of Prince of Wales’ Island to the Court of Directors of 1 July 1819, in which the Penang government claimed to have had “as full a knowledge of the instructions of the Supreme Government on those matters as Sir Stamford Raffles himself had.” Raffles indignantly repudiated the imputation. The phrase is the standard form of reference for the Penang administration in the records.
Specific acts
Among the specific acts attributed in the article to the “Government of Prince of Wales’ Island” are: the proposal, in 1819, that a military force consisting of relieved divisions of the 20th regiment native infantry should follow the Raffles-Coombs mission to Acheh — a proposal that the mission “very properly protested against”; the taking up of ships, at considerable expense, for that purpose; the injunction conveyed to Said Akil when he proceeded to Deli that, having gone “contrary to the injunctions of the Government of Prince of Wales’ island, he is placed without the protection of the British Government in the event of his infringing the laws or injuring the inhabitants of that country”; and the dispatch of the Lucas mission to Telok Semawé in February 1821, of the Bellona mission in 1827–1828, and of Fullerton’s letter to the Sultan of Siak and his circular to nine Siak chiefs of 1828.
The institutional reference is also used by the Achehnese themselves. The Three Sagis in their letter to Penang of 4 December 1822 address themselves to “our friend the Honble the Governor of Penang” — i.e., to the Government of Prince of Wales Island in its collective capacity, since the formal addressee was W. E. Phillips in his official character.
Significance
Van der Kemp’s distinction between individual governors and the collective government matters for his argument. The institutional voice of Penang — in correspondence with Calcutta, with the Achehnese court, and with the Dutch at Batavia — is often at odds with the policy of the individual governor of the moment; and the continuity of that institutional voice, through the successive administrations of Petrie, Bannerman, Phillips and Fullerton, is one of the strands of his narrative. The “Prince of Wales Island Governor” of this article is, in effect, the corporate person of the Penang establishment — the addressee of grievances, the drawer-up of minutes, the authoriser of missions, and the signatory of treaties — across the entire period from the first Coombs mission of 1817 through the Bellona intervention of 1828.
See Also
- Penang
- Colonel John Alexander Bannerman
- W. E. Phillips
- Governor Petrie
- Robert Fullerton
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
- Lucas mission to Telok Semawé (February 1821)
- Bellona mission to Sumatra’s East Coast (1827-1828)
- Three Sagis’ letter to Penang (4 December 1822)
- Said Akil’s Deli adventure (1824-1828)
- Bengal
- Calcutta
Source
Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159–239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.