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 forts in the eastern region, second only to Fort St. George in Madras, India.

The fort is made of bricks 50 to 180 centimeters in thickness. The 2000 Enggano earthquake which registered 7.9 on the moment magnitude scale, and of 2007, with its 3.5-meter tsunami, had no effect on the strongly built fort.

The fort has a rectangular layout, 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. The southwest side has an arch entrance with a wooden door. The fort encompasses 2.7 hectares, and stands on a site of 4.4 hectares.

The British East India Company built the fort between 1713–1719. In 1714 Governor Collett obtained 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 to complete. During that period, 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; the plan showed that the fort was walled with earth ramparts and ditch, with gun platforms on the bastions. The pace of construction was slow.

In 1760, during the Seven Years' War, a French squadron under the command of Charles Hector, 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.

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