Grave of William Petrie

William Petrie's Grave (23 February 2009)


William Petrie was a Governor of Penang. Petrie was born in 1747. He served from September 1812 to October 1816, dying in office, and was buried at the Protestant Cemetery along Northam Road, George Town. He took over the job from Archibald Seton, who was absent from duty due to the Java Expedition. Petrie was Acting Governor between 29 November 1811 until 27 July 1812.

William Petrie started off his term of duty in Asia as an office of the British East India Company based in Madras (now Chennai), India, in the 1780s. He served as a Member of Council in the 1790s and also was promoted to be Governor of Madras in 1807. An avid astronomer, William Petrie set up his own observatory at his home in Madras. He later presented the observatory to the East India Company, which called it the Madras Observatory. It was the first modern astronomical observatory outside Europe. The Indian Institute of Astrophysics traces its history to it.

Private Guided Tours of Penang

If you are seeking private guided tours of Penang, message Penang Tour Guides at penangtourguides@gmail.com and enquire with them.

 Buy, rent or sell properties in Penang

Do you have a property for sale or to rent out? Are you looking to buy or rent a property? Get in touch with me. WhatsApp me (Timothy Tye) at 012 429 9844, and I will assign one of my property agents to serve you. I will choose the agent for you, according to your property needs. So when you message me, provide me some details of what you need, whether to sell, to buy, to rent or to rent out, and what type of property, is it condo, apartment, house, shop, office or land.

 Latest updates on Penang Travel Tips

Map of Roads in Penang

Looking for information on Penang? Use this Map of Roads in Penang to zoom in on information about Penang, brought to you road by road.

About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.