St George’s Church
Farquhar Street, George Town
With the help of The East India Company, the church was built in 1816 using convict
labor during Colonel J. A. Bannerman’s term as British Governor of Penang.
The inspiration behind the formation of St George church, however, was credited to Rev. Robert Sparke Hutchings, a well known educationist and Robert Smith, an engineer and landscape artist.
Rev. Hutchings contributions towards the development of Penang from an educational perspective are significant. He founded the Penang Free School and compiled and wrote what were considered the first books on Malay grammar, in addition to several elementary text-books and a dictionary mainly for school use.
He founded the Auxiliary Bible Society and translated the New Testament into Malay.
The cost of building the church was 60,000 Spanish Dollars. To give you a rough idea on the significance of that amount, Singapore was sold to the British sometime in 1819 for the same price! On 11 May 1819, the church was consecrated by The Rt. Rev. Thomas Middleton, Bishop of Calcutta.
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