George Windsor Earl

Who was George Windsor Earl?

George Windsor Earl was an English navigator and author of works on the Indian Archipelago. He coined the term 'Indu-nesian', later popularised and adopted as the name for Indonesia.

Earl was born in London around 1813. He travelled to India after becoming a midshipman at age 14, then joined the colonists in Western Australia in 1830. In 1832 he resumed his nautical career, working between Batavia and Singapore, and gained the command of a trading ship. He returned to England and became involved in a scheme to colonise the North of Australia, leaving for Port Essington in 1838, but by 1845 the hardships and lack of success of the North Australia Expedition had exhausted him. He made a later venture to the region, promoting cotton and trade, with a similar result. From 1855 until his death he held a variety of official administrative positions in the region, his last post was at Penang.

Earl died on a sea journey to England in 1865, and is buried at the Old Protestant Cemetery, George Town, Penang, in present-day Malaysia.

G. W.