History
The school was founded by Rev. Sparke Hutchings on 21 October 1816, on the island of Penang, Malaya. Its first headmaster was Mr. James Cox 1816-1821. Its premises on Farquhar Street first housed the Hutchings School, but is now the Penang State Museum. In 1928, the school moved to its current location on Jalan Masjid Negeri (also known as Green Lane). The school hosted the first communist cell ever to penetrate a Malayan school. Several of the schoolmasters were socialist in outlook and encouraged the formation of the cell which went on to produce a cadre of communist leaders who went on to make their careers in China. The communist cell was suppressed in the late 1930s.
The school received cluster school status from the Malaysian Ministry of Education in 2007.
Excerpts of the original charter: "That it will be the first object of the Institution to provide for the Education of such children as would be otherwise, brought up in idleness and consequent vice, and without any means of obtaining instruction either in useful learning or in any manual employment, and to implant in them in the early habits of industry, order and a good conduct." -—from "The Original Plan of the Establishment of Prince of Wales Island, Free School, 1816".
Read more about this topic: Penang Free School
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