Fort Marlborough (Indonesian Benteng Marlborough, also known as Malabero) is a former East India Company fort located in Bengkulu City, Sumatra. It was built between 1713 and 1719 by the East India Company under the leadership of Governor Joseph Collett as a defensive fort for the British East India Company's Residency there. It was one of the strongest British forts in the eastern region, second only to Fort St. George in Madras, India.
Building
thumb|left|Bengkulu City with Fort Marlborough in center
thumb|left|Southwest arch entrance of Fort Marlborough
The fort is made of bricks 50 to 180 centimeters in thickness. The 2000 Enggano earthquake, which registered 7.9 on the moment magnitude scale, and of 2007, with its 3.5-meter tsunami, had no effect on the strongly built fort.
The fort has a rectangular layout, with an arrowhead-shaped bastion on each corner. The entrance to the fort is in the southwest, protected by a ravelin. A dry moat follows the trace of the fort. A wooden bridge spans the ditch that separates the main building from the front building. The southwest side has an arch entrance with a wooden door.
The British transferred Bengkulu, then known as Bencoolen, to Dutch control under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, which defined British and Dutch spheres of influence. In exchange, the Dutch ceded Malacca to Britain and gave up their designs on the British settlement of Singapore. In 1837, the fort had about 60 Dutch soldiers occupying it. The Japanese occupied the fort during their occupation of the Dutch East Indies (1942–1945). Then, during the Indonesian National Revolution period, the fort housed the headquarters of the Indonesian national police until the Dutch reoccupied the fort. When the Dutch left Indonesia in 1950, the Indonesian Army took over the fort. In 1977, the fort was handed over to the then Department of Education and Culture to be restored and converted into a heritage site.