is where some 800 victims of the
Sook Ching massacres during
World War II were laid to rest. during
Chinese New Year Soon after the founding of
Penang Island in 1786,
British East India Company officials, led by Captain
Francis Light, began exploring and clearing the interior of the island for agricultural purposes. Pepper and
nutmeg farms were then established at the hills of Ayer Itam, while
Light also commissioned the planting of
strawberries at
Penang Hill. The Anglo-Indian
Suffolk House, one of
Light's residences, was also built within a pepper estate by the Air Itam River. The agricultural village of Ayer Itam grew throughout the 19th century, populated by farmers who owned the fruit and vegetable farms at the surrounding hills. To this day, fresh produce are produced at the foothills of Ayer Itam and distributed daily to the wet markets all over the city. Ayer Itam was once home to the Penang Zoological Gardens, the first zoo in Malaysia. Supposedly opened in the 1920s by a monk named Fa Kong, the zoo was shut down for good prior to
World War II due to the excessive maintenance costs. The Great Ayer Itam Fire of 1935 destroyed more than 100 homes in the area. At the time, the residences at Ayer Itam were mostly wooden; this incident led to the construction of brick buildings within the suburb. The area was also a hinterland which hid refugees fleeing from the episodes of violence that had occasionally erupted in the city. For instance, the Penang Riots of 1867 forced some residents within the
city centre to evacuate to Ayer Itam.
World War II, however, brought even greater numbers of refugees to the suburb. During the war, when the
Imperial Japanese Army implemented the
Sook Ching purges, Ayer Itam became one of the sites where Chinese civilians were massacred. The urbanisation of Ayer Itam since the 1950s has brought about a concurrent increase in living standards and transformed the landscape with more high rises, making the suburb one of the more densely populated areas in George Town. == Geography ==