Oldest missionary convent in Southeast Asia becomes an international school
Convent Light Street, founded by the French Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, served the region’s orphans and youth for over 170 years. It now becomes an international school, but leaves behind an exemplary history of missionary zeal. For a Muslim alumna, the school taught her respect for other religions.
Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews) – Convent Light Street in George Town, Penang, the oldest missionary convent in Southeast Asia, founded in 1852, will continue to serve as an international learning centre after operating for 172 years as a missionary girls' school.
Established by French Catholic nuns from the Mission of the Holy Child Jesus, at the invitation of Bishop Jean-Baptiste Boucho, MEP, the establishment, first operating as an orphanage, closed its doors in March last year, leaving behind an exemplary history of dedication to the education of girls in the northern region of old Malaya.
The building, which includes an iconic chapel, housed a boarding school for female students from all walks of life, including princesses from the royal house of Thailand, daughters of Malay sultans and aristocrats, as well as girls from wealthy Chinese families.
In 1852 three pioneer nuns of the Holy Child Jesus, known as the Dames of St Maur, settled in a wooden hut near the Church of the Assumption, on Church Street in George Town. This was the humble beginning of Convent Light Street.
The nuns taught during the day and sewed clothes at night to raise money to buy necessities. In addition, they had to adapt to the harsh tropical climate and learn the local languages.
As the number of children in their care rose, with consequent overcrowding, the need to find a new facility became evident.
Sr St Mathilde searched for a suitable site, until she found the abandoned Government House on Light Street, formerly the residence of Captain Francis Light, an English explorer, after the founding of Penang in 1786.
In 1859 the nuns purchased the Anglo-Indian style building and surrounding seven-acre complex for 50,000 French francs. For this reason, the convent was named "Convent Light Street".
The House was converted into a novitiate, while the surrounding wooden structures were used as dormitories, kitchens, and classrooms. Meanwhile, the sisters continued to take in orphans, both male and female, regardless of ethnicity and origin.
The children would normally remain until they reached the age of 11, before entering the nearby institute of St Xavier, founded in 1786 by the French Catholic priest Father Arnaud-Antoine Garnault.
After 80 years since its founding, the convent continued to expand. The present Old Hall, cloisters and classrooms were built in 1882.
The building is listed as a Category 1 of the George Town World Heritage Zone. More extensions were completed by 1934, and make up the Convent Light Street compound as it is today.
During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy took over the school and used Government House as a base and interrogation centre. Some 22 US Navy sailors from the submarine USS Grenadier were interrogated there.
After the war, the convent continued its long history of commitment to girls' education.
The Sisters believed that in the event of Malaysia’s independence from the British, they could play a role of unity within Malaysia's multi-ethnic society. But, since 1957, the year of Malaysian independence, the school has faced opposition from the Malaysian federal government.
As a result, it stopped taking in orphans in 1961. Eventually, all of the country's missionary schools were incorporated in 1971 into the standardised Malay national education system, and Convent Light Street was forced to remove the crucifix from its official shield. Despite this, the convent maintained a solid reputation until it closed last year.
Speaking to AsiaNews, a Muslim student who attended the school, Juli Murshidah Ahmad Munassor, now a manager at a communications firm, talked about her formative years at Convent Light Street.
“My classmates were Malays, Chinese, Indians, Eurasians, and students of the Sikh faith. With such a start to education in a missionary school, I have always enjoyed that feeling of Muhibbah (the spirit of goodwill) among our multi-racial friends and schoolmates,” Juli said.
“I can fondly remember my headmistress, an Irish nun, Sr. Francis de Sales, who used to say prayers daily. The Muslim girls were present during these Christian prayers, but we recited or own prayers in accordance to our Islamic faith,” she explained.
According to Juli, this experience taught her respect for other religions, something that today’s school can hardly offer now. “I doubt children nowadays would be allowed to have this kind of experience anymore in Malaysia, where everything has been politicised,” she lamented.
Another former student, Joan Lim-Choong, told AsiaNews that she was very grateful for her education at Convent Light Street in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
She said that one of the most significant lessons she received from a teacher was about the importance of respect and kindness.
According to Lim, the Catholic Sisters were strict, particularly over punctuality, order, cleanliness, mutual respect, and courteous behavior. “However, we could still be playful and enjoy being youths. We knew they cared for us because of the time that they would give us to counsel and guide us during recess and after school,” she explained.
“To put it in a nutshell, we enjoyed learning and the Catholic Sisters imparted to us the joy of learning, sharing, and caring for one another as well as helping us become today’s responsible citizens in our own stations in life,” Lim added.
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