William Petrie
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This article is about the English merchant and civil servant. For the English electrical engineer, see William Petrie (electrical engineer). For the archaeologist, Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, see Flinders Petrie.
William Petrie (1747 – 27 October 1816)[1]: 200–1 was a British officer of the East India Company in Chennai (formerly Madras) during the 1780s,[2] and was Governor of Prince of Wales Island (Penang Island) from 1812 to 1816. An amateur astronomer, Petrie helped found the first modern observatory outside Europe, the Madras Observatory.