Fort Marlborough
Fort Marlborough (Indonesian Benteng Marlborough, also known as Malabero) is an English fort located in Bengkulu City, Sumatra. It was built between 1713-1719 by the East India Company under the leadership of Governor Joseph Collett as a defensive fort for the British Bencoolen. It was one of the strongest British fort in the eastern region, second only to Fort St. George in Madras, India.[1]
Building
The fort is made of bricks 50 to 180 centimeter in thickness. The earthquakes of 2000, which registered 7.3 on the Richter scale, of 2007, with its 3.5 meters tsunami, had no effect on the strongly-built fort.[2]
The fort's shape is rectangular, with an arrowhead-shaped bastion on each corner. The entrance to the fort is in the southwest, protected by a (ravelin). A dry moat follows the trace of the fort. A wooden bridge spans the ditch that separates the main building from the front building. On the southwest side there's an arch entrance with a wooden door.[1] The fort encompasses 2.7 hectares, and sits on a site of 4.4 hectares.
History
The British East India Company built the fort between 1713-1719. Governor Collett got in 1714 the permission to build a new fort in Bencoolen. He named the new fort, which he built two miles from the older fort (Fort York), Fort Marlborough.
The fort was built on an artificial hill and construction, using both convict and local labor, took several years. During the period of construction, the civil officers and the military garrison were divided between the old and the new fort.
In April 1715 Governor Collett sent a copy of the plan of the first Fort Marlborough was walled with earth ramparts and ditch, with gun platforms on the bastions. The work continued on slow progress.[1]
In 1760, during the Seven Year's War, a French squadron under the command of the Comte d'Estaing took the fort and used it as a base to attack and subdue other English settlements on the west coast of Sumatra. Before returning to the Mascarenes he ransomed the fort back to the English.
At one time, the native people of Bengkulu burned the fort, forcing the inhabitants to flee to Madras. They returned in 1724 after an agreement was held. In 1793, another attack on the fortress occurred, killing one English officer, Robert Hamilton. Another attack happened in 1807, killing a resident Thomas Parr. Both are commemorated with monuments in Bengkulu city by the British colonial government.[1]
The British transferred Bengkulu, then known as Bencoolen, to Dutch control under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, which defined British and Dutch spheres of influence.
Fort Marlborough served the Dutch East Indies from 1825 until 1942.[citation needed] In 1837, the Fort had about 60 Dutch soldiers occupying it.[3] The Japanese occupied the fort during their occupation of the Dutch East Indies (1942-1945). Then, during the Indonesian National Revolution period, the Fort housed the headquarters of the Indonesian national police until the Dutch reoccupied the fort. When the Dutch left Indonesia in 1950, the Indonesian Army took over the fort. In 1977, the fort was handed over to the Department of Education and Culture to be restored and converted into a heritage site.[1]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e "Benteng Marlborough". Pemerintah Kota Ambon. Kantor Pengolahan Data Elektronik. 2013. Retrieved August 26, 2013.
- ^ "Marlborough Benteng bersejarah nan perkasa". October 6, 2013.
- ^ Roberts, Edmund (1837). Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 38.