WD2974

Pulau Jerejak and the south-east coast of Prince of Wales Island, Penang. c.1806.

By W.H. Furber

Inscribed on front in ink: ‘W.H. Furber’ and on reverse:’ View of Poolo Jaraga and the South Point of Prince of Wales’s Island with a Ship coming through the South Passage’.

Water-colour; 24.8 by 34.4 cm.

Note: The water-colour depicts the so-called Inner Harbour, formed by the south-eastern end of the island of Penang and Pulau Jerejak, the latter island lying between Penang and the Malay Peninsula. Sir George Leith described Pulau Jerejak in 1804 as being 'covered with fine Timber, and abounding with small streams of excellent Water'. Of the two entrances to Inner Harbour he wrote: 'one from the Northward, through a narrow and intricate channel, [is] seldom used by large ships; the other is by the common Southern channel, from whence ships can, if necessary, be easily warped into the Inner Harbour'. The Southern channel or 'South Passage', through which in the water-colour an East Indiaman is seen passing, was first surveyed by Lieutenant (later Sir) Home Popham in 1791, when it was found that it was safe for ships of draught not exceeding twenty-four feet. Beacons, and (in 1792) chained buoys, were placed as markers of the channel.

The water-colour was in all probability executed by W. H. Furber (about whom nothing is known) when surveys were being made between June and August 1806 by Paul Tate, the officiating Engineer, and Joseph Seaton, a master shipbuilder from Portsmouth, to locate a suitable site for a dockyard. On 22 August Tate submitted a report giving 'a decided preference ... to two inlets on the Island of Jerajah, as affording the greatest facilities for Docks', but he rescinded this recommendation when it was discovered that there was no one able to work the newly arrived steam-engine. At the same time Sir Thomas Troubridge, the naval commander attached to Penang, left the station together with the skilled European artificers who were expected to construct the docks. In the circumstances the Prince of Wales Island Government referred the whole matter to the Court of Directors in London who issued orders in May 1807 to suspend all shipbuilding operations, except for two ships for which timber had been prepared. In April 1809 the construction of the docks was stopped, and in January of the following year the order was repeated prohibiting the building of ships for the Navy.