Note the change of expression in the transition from convict to `trade’, in the sculpture, `Labourer to Trader’. For India’s colonial rulers in the nineteenth century, simply imprisoning someone was considered insufficient punishment, something with more `bite’ was called for. The thinking was, transportation – separating prisoners from their home culture and shipping them overseas-made their confinement more severe.

Immediately after the founding of Penang, Francis Light requested Indian convict labour to help develop the colony, and by 1805 there were over 700 of these convict labourers in Penang, a number that doubled by 1824. Once here, these convict worked on major government buildings including Fort Cornwallis, and were also used in clearing swamps and forest. According to Governor Blundell of the Straits Settlements, these prisoners deserved credit for building the whole of the existing the roads throughout the island…. every bridge on both town and country, all the existing canals, sea walls, jetties, piers, etc’.

Despite being prisoners, they were considered better workers than the regular or local work force. Many of these convicts were allowed to live relatively freely, not confined behind bars, and many were released well before the expiry of their sentences. By the 1860s `very few’ prisoners returned to their home in India, with the majority preferring to remain in Penang