and Gelugor. Gelugor was one of the first areas of Penang Island to be inhabited. Fishermen had moved into the area from
Sumatra in the 18th century, predating Captain
Francis Light's founding of Penang Island in 1786. Brown also brought in labourers from
India to work in the estates. He eventually became the largest landowner on the island in the early 19th century. Up until the end of
World War II, Gelugor remained a rural area. Prior to the war, the
British Army converted one of David Brown's houses into the Glugor Barracks, to be renamed later as Minden Barracks. The army camp was occupied by the
Imperial Japanese Army during the war. It was again put in use during the
Malayan Emergency and the
Indonesian Confrontation, before being closed for good in 1971 following the withdrawal of all
British armed forces from
Southeast Asia. The development of residential estates at Gelugor began in the 1960s, originally to house civil servants. Also in the 1960s, a proposal to establish Penang's first university was mooted. Eventually, the Penang University () was founded in 1969, before being relocated to the former Minden Barracks in 1971. The university has since been renamed
Universiti Sains Malaysia, now one of the foremost public universities in
Malaysia. ==Geography==