The name of Robert Townsend Farquhar (not to be confused with Major Farquhar of Singapore), 2nd Lieutenant of Prince of Wales Island (now Penang Island) from 1804 to 1805, is well known today throughout Penang and beyond as one George Town’s main streets is named after him. Farquhar Street has contained most of Penang’s best colonial buildings since it was constructed in the 1790s. It was named in 1804 during his governorship probably on his own instructions.

His short, two year governorship, succeeding George Leith, has been described by historian Donald Davies as “the Age of Humbug” due to his proposals for grand and fanciful projects without proper consideration of the costs, together with creative accounting and lack of proper financial records during his tenure.

“Humbug” for example, was his report to his masters at the East India Company in Bengal, where he grossly exaggerated the wealth generated by the pepper trade which contributed to the upgrading of the status of the island by the Government. As a result when his successor, Philip Dundas was appointed he arrived with a huge entourage only to discover that there was insufficient funds to maintain his staff.

His proposal for the construction of an aqueduct to carry water from what was later the Penang Botanical Gardens, where there was a waterfall, to George Town and a network of pipes to carry it into houses, was “pie in the sky”. His estimates concerning the costs were far too low, and his proposal to defray them by taxing the general public according to their water usage was fantasy. The residents of George Town already enjoyed a plentiful supply of water free of charge from a well in the town and the plan to charge commercial users such as ships, including those of their own Government and the East India Company, would discourage commerce, the opposite of what the Government was seeking.

His sale of the large collection of plants and specimens of the nursery gardens, including 70,000 nutmeg plants and 55,000 clove plants to raise capital, within days of the untimely death of its superintendent, Christopher Smith, also no doubt raised eyebrows.

In addition, his plan to turn Jerejak Island into a shipbuilding centre relying on wood supplied from the forests of Siam (Thailand) was also dismissed as impractical.

Nevertheless, despite criticism from London and Bengal of many of his more fanciful projects and his financial laxities, he did succeed in carrying out many civic improvements. His short two year term as acting governor saw the building of many new roads on the island, construction of new government buildings, and the enlargement of the Fort Cornwallis.

So the Farquhar name lives on in Penang despite Malaysia’s National Language legislation requiring colonial street names to be renamed using the Malay language. It is indeed refreshing to see that many Penangites at least appear to cherish their colonial history.