I stood at Jesselton Point last week watching people queue for speedboats to the islands. The wind carried the smell of petrol across the harbor as boats idled at the pier. Beyond them, the sea glowed an almost impossible blue, broken only by forest-clad islands on the horizon. Closer in, fishing boats rocked gently against the waves. Around me, hundreds of travelers clutched towels, goggles, and bright orange life jackets while conversations drifted between Malay, Cantonese, Mandarin, English, French, and Italian. It is the sort of place people pass through rather than stop to consider.

A large sign marked the departure point: Jesselton. One name, no explanation. I found myself asking the question visitors almost never bother to ask: who was Jessel?

I expected an explorer or a colonial governor, another stern-faced Victorian imperial administrator staring down from an oil portrait. What I found was a Jewish lawyer from London who, as far as historians can determine, almost certainly never visited the city named after him.

Sir Charles James Jessel (1860–1928) served as vice-chairman of the British North Borneo Company, a Royal Chartered enterprise that governed a sizable stretch of what is now Malaysia. In........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)