SANDAKAN HISTORY

History tells us that an Englishman named William B Prayer founded Sandakan on 21st June 1879. In Fact , the story of Sandakan started more than a century earlier. During the eighteenth Century, it has its beginning as a trading outpost of the Sulu Sultanate. It was an important source of bee wax used mainly in making candles, rattan canes and the edibles nests relished by the Chinese communities throughout Asia. The power of the Sulu Sultanate declined rapidly the second half of the nineteenth century and with it, existence of many trading posts, including.

By early 1870’s, a mixed group of German and British adventures and traders formed a small settlement on Pulau Timbang in Sandakan Bay as a base for their activities in the Sulu Sea. One of them is a Scotsman named William Clarke Cowie. After a few years, Cowie and his colleagues abandoned the settlement now known as “ Kampung German”.

In 1881, the British government permitted The British North Borneo ( Chartered ) Company to rule North Borneo while the British government had the right to opppoint a governor and other officers.Later in 1888, the state was made a British Protectorate. The British North Borneo Company rules Sabah from 1881 to 1946.