Tan Ean Kiam (1881–1943) was a successful businessman and merchant, and also a philanthropist. He was one of the founders of the Overseas Chinese Bank Corporation. Ean Kiam Place was named after him. Tan Ean Kiam’s grave is in Bukit Brown Cemetery.
SOURCE: Goh, 2011
This place on the south bank of the Singapore River was named in 1907 after Mr Earle, the manager of the Straits Steamship Company and a member of the Legislative Council.
Earle Quay
Earle Quay which is currently the site of a condominium, was located on the south bank of the Singapore River and named in 1907 after Mr Earle, the manager of the Straits Steamship Company.
SOURCE: MPMCOM, 13 Dec 1907; Singam, 1962
Both East Coast Road and West Coast Road were named to reflect the cardinal directions they represented from the City Centre (i.e. the 1828 Raffles Plan area). Before the reclamation, the road use to hug the coastal beach area.
East Coast Road
East Coast Road was a narrow rural road hugging the beach front around the 1930s. With land reclamation, the sea is now far from the current East Coast Road.
The road is named after a Singapore-born (1834) gentleman Alberto Eber who was married at the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd. Alberto owned property in what is now Eber Road. His grandson was the well-known lawyer and musician Rene Eber (contrary to most references, Alberto Eber was not born in Malacca).
SOURCE: Braga-Blake and Oehlers, 1992:94; Lee Kip Lee, personal communication, 2003
This was the name given to a reserve road off Upper Serangoon Road in 1956 at the request of residents in the area.
SOURCE: MPMCOM, 31 Jan 1956
This private housing estate was built in the 1950s by Ang Kheng Leng Architects and the roads were named after various trees that are supposed to represent a Garden of Eden – such as, Cherry Avenue, Cypress Avenue, Fir Avenue, Maple Avenue (and Lane), Oak Avenue and Redwood Avenue.
This road was named after Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, who visited Singapore in 1869. The occasion was marked with much fanfare, as seen in the following extract from The Straits Times:
“A royal salute from Fort Canning announced that His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh had left the Galatea. The reception tent at Johnston’s Pier was not as full as it might have been as the ladies preferred to observe the pageant from the verandahs of the mercantile establishments. The scene was a very enlivened one. The decorations were beautiful along Collyer Quay and all the ships were covered in bunting. His Royal Highness was received by the Governor and the Maharajah of Johor and other officials.
Roads in Eden Park, a private housing estate in the Bukit Timah area are named after temperate trees (Fir, Redwood, Oak).
“A detachment of the 75th Regiment, the Singapore Volunteers and the Mounted Escort were drawn up opposite the landing pier which, on the Royal Highness’ appearance, presented arms and pipes of the 75th struck up “God Save the King”. Three hearty cheers then rent the air which were caught up and echoed by the Asiatics. The procession then moved off along Collyer Quay, through De Souza Street, around Commercial Square, through Malacca Street, Market Street, Boat Quay, Elgin Bridge, down High Street and around the Esplanade to the Town Hall.”
SOURCE: Raja-Singam, 1939:99; Ramachandran, 1969:18
See also Presentment Bridge
This is the first bridge across the Singapore River, linking North and South Bridge roads. It was said to have existed as a wooden, native-built bridge at the time of Raffles’ founding in 1819. In 1822, Lieutenant Philip Jackson built the second wooden footbridge here, called Presentment Bridge (also known as Jackson’s Bridge and Monkey Bridge). Between 1827 and 1842, Presentment Bridge underwent constant repairs and was eventually demolished. Following that, a third wooden footbridge was constructed by J.T. Thomson and named after him. In 1845, Thomson’s Bridge was widened to accommodate carriages. With increasing traffic flow, Thomson’s Bridge was later demolished and an iron bridge replaced it in 1862 and was named Elgin Bridge after the Governor General of India, Lord Elgin (1862-3).
Elgin Bridge
Elgin Bridge was named after Lord Elgin, the Governor General of India (1862-3).
The eighth Earl of Elgin was in Singapore on his way to China to take up the post of British Plenipotentiary in China when news broke out of the Indian mutiny in May 1857. From Singapore, Lord Elgin dispatched a shipload of troops for India to save the British Empire.
This bridge was widened in the 1870s and eventually dismantled in 1925. In 1928-9 the current bridge was built linking the Chinese community on the south side of the river to the Indian merchants of High Street on the north side. It was opened by the Governor, Sir Hugh Clifford, on 30 May 1929.
It was on the left bank in the vicinity of the bridge that Raffles, Farquhar and a sepoy landed from a boat to meet Temenggong Abdul Rahman on 29 January 1819.
Elgin Bridge is known as thih tiau kio in Hokkien, meaning “iron suspension bridge”.
SOURCE: The Sunday Times, 16 Mar 1986:14; Edwards & Keys, 1988:495; Ramachandran, 1969:69; Firmstone, 1905:142-43; The Straits Times, 29 June 1985
Elias Road is named after two Jewish brothers, Joseph Aaron (1881-1949) and Ezra Aaron (1884-1943) Elias. They come from a family of property speculators and brokers. Joseph was a successful businessman whose ventures included bottling mineral water from Seletar, running the now defunct Malaya Tribune newspaper, and being the owner of Tampines Tile Ltd. and a refrigeration business, Fresh Food and Refrigerator Company, which he sold to Cold Storage in 1931.
A well-respected member of the community, Joseph was made a Justice of Peace, a Municipal Commissioner, and given other civic honours. Elias Road was the road that originally led to their holiday bungalow in Pasir Ris. Joseph and his three bachelor brothers Ezra (1884-1943), Isaac (1891-1968) and Raphael or Ralph (1893-1936) shared the “Big House” by the sea. They also had a house in Amber Road with beautiful stained glass panels. This house is now owned by Seaview Hotel.
Joseph Elias was the owner of the Pavilion Cinema in Orchard Road, where Orchard Central (in front of Emerald Hill Road) currently stands.
SOURCE: The Straits Times, “Extra Friday” 4 Dec 1992:1 & 13; Lee Kip Lee’s notes; Bieder, 2007:55-57
Located in South Union Park, these roads were officially named in 1970.
SOURCE: IRD, 19 Nov 1970, MC 70, VII, Enc. No. 123
See Clarence Walk
The Princess Elizabeth Estate, originally comprising 84 artisans’ quarters and 84 workmen’s flats, was completed in 1951 as part of the housing scheme set up as a permanent memorial to commemorate the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to the Duke of Edinburgh. The balance of over eight hundred dollars remaining from a fund set up for the celebrations was vested in the Singapore Improvement Trust and applied to the erection of workmen’s dwellings at two sites, the first at Farrer Park and the second at Princess Elizabeth Park Estate, Upper Bukit Timah Road. Elizabeth Drive, which fringes the estate, was originally named Princess Elizabeth Drive in 1952.
SOURCE: SIT 1067/51, 25 Oct 1951: Naming and Renumbering of roads within Princess Elizabeth Estate, Bukit Timah Road; Singapore Improvement Trust, 1950:4,50
Ellenborough Street
The influence of Ellenborough is best seen in this 1854 map of a section of the Singapore River. The first place named under Ellenborough was the 1840 shophouse buildings named the Ellenborough buildings. Tocksing Street was then named Ellenborough Street and later the ‘New Market’ was also named Ellenborough Market.
Before 1845, this area was known as Kampong Malacca. At that time it was a swamp and at high tide the Singapore River overflowed its banks into this area. This street forms part of the site of the former famous Ellenborough Market (which was engulfed by fire in 1968 and demolished in 1970) and shophouses facing the Singapore River. The original market was built in 1845 by Captain Charles E. Faber, the Superintending Engineer. When the Edinburgh Exhibition of 1897 ended, part of its structure was dismantled and shipped out to Singapore and re-assembled here to form the market. The market was formerly known as Pasar Bahru or New Market.
Ellenborough Market
A scene of Ellenborough Market with the Singapore River in the foreground. This picture was taken around the 1950s.
The Ellenborough buildings, a large triangular block of two-storey shophouses, were built by the Government Surveyor, John Turnbull Thomson, between 1845 and 1847 for the well-known Chinese businessman, Tan Tock Seng (1778-1850). The Ellenborough buildings were demolished in the mid-1990s to make way for the new MRT station. The 1854 Map of Singapore records Ellenborough Street as Tocksing Street, after Tan Tock Seng. It is not known when it was renamed Ellenborough Street, after Lord Ellenborough (1791-1871), Governor General of India (1842-4). Apart from the street, the market and shophouses too were named after him. To the Chinese, Ellenborough Street was known as sin pa sat kham, or “the mouth of the new market”, in contrast to the Telok Ayer Market, which was known as lau pa sat or “old market”. Ellenborough Street was also known to the Hokkiens as sin pa sat pi, meaning “beside the new market”, i.e., Ellenborough Market.
SOURCE: Hancock & Gibson-Hill, 1954:15; Berry, 1982:88; Edwards & Keys, 1988:399; Firmstone, 1905:86-87
This road is named after a Legislative Councillor.
SOURCE: Ramachandran, 1969
This road was named in 1922 after Sir Evelyn Campbell Ellis, of the legal firm Drew and Napier (established in 1889). Ellis came to Singapore from Hong Kong in 1896. He excelled in his legal career here and was an unofficial member of the Legislative Council (1908-16) and acting Attorney-General (1912-3).
SOURCE: MPMCOM, 27 Apr 1922; Raja-Singam, 1939:101
This building with the Star of David on the building was owned by the Jewish businessman, Isaac Ellison. Isaac and Flora Ellison were Iraqi Jews who came from Rangoon to Singapore. They had 13 children, and their two sons, Joseph and Charlie, inherited the building from their parents. The building was built in 1924. Family members noted that the building was sold to the government in the late 1980s.
SOURCE: Bieder, 2007:53
The Emerald hill area was originally owned by William Cuppage, a postal clerk who rose to become the acting Postmaster General in the 1840s. Cuppage first leased Emerald Hill in 1837 and in 1845 secured a permanent grant for his nutmeg plantation, which failed in the 1860s because of disease. He himself moved from his residence in Hill Street to Emerald Hill, in the early 1850s and lived in the area till his death in 1872. Here he built two houses (Erin Lodge and Fern Cottage) where he lived.
In the 1860s Singapore map, William Cuppage is listed as having a residence called “Emerald Hill”, which could be the source of the road name. After his death, Cuppage’s plantation was left to his daughters and in 1890 it was sold to one of his sons-in-law, the lawyer Edwin Koek. Koek turned the area into an orchard and built another house on the estate, called Claregrove. Koek’s orchard venture failed and he went bankrupt. The property was then sold to Thomas E. Rowell in 1891.
By the turn of the century, the 13.2 ha land and its three houses (Erin, Fern and Claregrove) were the property of Seah Boon Kang and Seah Eng Kiat. In 1901, they subdivided the property into 38 plots and these were further subdivided, forming the land area of the terrace houses in Emerald Hill Road. All three houses were subsequently demolished: Fern Cottage in 1906 made way for terrace houses; in 1924 Claregrove gave way to the Singapore Chinese Girls’ School, and Erin Lodge was replaced with more terrace houses. The road itself was laid out in 1901 and the current terrace houses alongside the road were built between 1901 and 1925.
Today, Emerald Hill is associated with the Peranakans. One of the first few Peranakans to move into the area was Seow Poh Leng, the son of Seow Eu Jin, a former Professor of Architecture at the National University of Singapore. The Seow family is related to the Peranakan patriarch Tan Tock Seng. Although the Peranakans do not dominate the area, the few families who have lived here were prominent Singaporean families and hence the folklore of the place remains.
SOURCE: Gretchen, 1984:99; Lee, 1990:14-15
See also Victoria Memorial Hall
Empress Place was named by the Municipal Council in 1907 in memory of Queen Victoria (1819-1901), Empress of India (1876-1901). At the municipal meeting, there was initially some discussion as to whether the road should be named Kings Place or Empress Place. This is said to be one of the oldest pedestrian spaces in Singapore, probably before 1900.
The Empress Place building was gazetted as a national monument on 14 February 1992.
SOURCE: MPMCOM, 1 Mar 1907; Edwards & Keys, 1988:379
Empress Place
The Empress Place Building is today the home of the Asian Civilisations Museum.
See Coronation Road
This road was named in 1905 at the time of King Edward VII’s coronation and was thus used to commemorate royalty.
SOURCE: MPMCOM, 14 Jul 1905
See Eng Watt Street
This street is named after Koh Eng Hoon (1823-80) of Chop Soon Bee in Malacca Street. Eng Hoon came from an old Chinese family that has been in Malacca for over 200 years. He came to Singapore in 1840 at the age of 17 and joined Boustead & Company as a cashier. In 1845, he started his own business as a merchant and commission agent and had large dealings with the Bugis.
SOURCE: Raja-Singam, 1939:101
This road is named after Madame Tan Eng Neo, wife of Gaw Boon Chan. Her grave was recently discovered in the Bukit Brown Chinese Cemetery. Eng Neo Avenue became a public road in 1976.
SOURCE: The Straits Times, 17 Jul 2011; Asia Paranormal Investigators website.
See Eng Hoon Street
Like other roads within the Tiong Bahru Singapore Improvement Trust estate named after Chinese pioneers, this road is named after Chinese merchant, Koh Eng Watt, brother of Koh Eng Hoon. This name was suggested by Municipal Commissioner See Tiong Wah in 1929, who believed that street-names should commemorate the names of people who have given land to the Commissioners for public purposes.
SOURCE: MPMCOM, 1 Mar 1929; Raja-Singam, 1939:101
Eng Hoon Street
This street in Tiong Bahru is named after Koh Eng Hoon, a local businessman and merchant.
See Bernam Street
This street was named after a Malayan place in 1898. Other Malayan place names which were assigned in the same year to new streets laid out on either side of Anson Road near Tanjong Pagar included Bernam Street, Tras Street and Raub Street.
The Hokkiens refer to Enggor Street as chin seng sua khau, meaning “Chin Seng hill mouth”.
SOURCE: ARSM, 1898:14; Firmstone, 1905:86-7
See Lorong Engku Aman
This is a new street linking Sims Avenue and Geylang Road running next to the Malay Village. It is named after the former philanthropist and landowner, Abdulrahman bin Taha Alsagoff, who lived in the only brick house among the attap huts in the area back in the 1930s. Aman refers to Abdulrahman and Engku is a term used to address him as he was descended from Bugis royalty. This, however, is not the first road in the vicinity to be named after Engku Aman.
In the 1950s and 1960s, up to the late 1980s, there used to be a road called Lorong Engku Aman which ran off Geylang Road next to and parallel to Paya Lebar Road. This road was later consumed by development. According to a committee member of the Advisory Committee on Street Names, Masuri Salikun, a well-known Malay poet, memories of this former road prompted him to support the decision to toponymically reinstate the name of Engku Aman when the new road came up for naming.
Buildings that today stand as a reminder of Engku Aman’s contributions to the Muslim community in Singapore include the Hajjah Fatimah Mosque, founded by his great-grandmother and reconstructed by him; the Alsagoff Arab School; and the Muslim orphanages in Singapore, the Darul Ihsan (for boys) and the Darul Ihsan Lilbanat (for girls).
SOURCE: The Straits Times, 16 Aug 1994; The Sunday Times, 4 Sep 1994
Located in the Jurong Industrial Estate, the original suggestion for this road, “Chin Lieng Road”, was rejected in favour of Enterprise Road, in line with the general trend to use road names associated with industrial activity in this area.
SOURCE: MC 2/67, 6 Sep 1968
This road is named after Samuel Erskine of Howarth Erskine and Company, a well-known engineering company in the 1870s. Another view holds that this road was named after J.J. Erskine, who was listed as a government officer owning land in Singapore in 1824. It would appear that the first view is more likely to be the correct one, as the road was not named until 1907, when a number of houses were built along the road.
Erskine Road
Street sign of Erskine Road which has been done in Chinese style to fit in with the Chinatown theme.
SOURCE: MPMCOM, 5 Jul 1907; Edwards & Keys, 1988:452
See Connaught Drive; Padang; Queen Elizabeth Walk
In the 1850s, the Esplanade referred to what is now the Padang (previously known as The Plain) in front of City Hall. It is best captured in Thomson’s 1851 painting, “The Esplanade from Scandal Point”. With land reclamation in 1943, the term Esplanade then referred to the area of the present Queen Elizabeth Walk. In this park area are several memorials, including the Cenotaph, the Tan Kim Seng Fountain (moved here in 1925 from Fullerton Square) and the Lim Bo Seng Memorial (unveiled in 1954). The Tamils call the Esplanade Park “January thidal” or “January place” because of the former sports activities held here on New Year’s Day, the first of January. The Chinese called this place tua kok cheng chau po or “the grass field in front of the great court” (referring to the Padang in front of the Supreme Court). The Esplanade Park and Queen Elizabeth Walk were built on reclaimed land in 1943 and include the Cenotaph, the Tan Kim Seng Fountain, and the Lim Bo Seng Memorial.
Queen Elizabeth Walk covers an area of approximately 9.5 acres and includes a few monuments of historical interest. It was substantially completed in 1953 and was named in honour of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation in the same year. It was declared open on Coronation Day, 30 May 1953 by Mrs T.P.F. McNiece. There was an open air bandstand near the Lim Bo Seng Memorial which was completed in 1954.
SOURCE: Edwards & Keys, 1988:374-75; Pearson, 1953:84-85
See Bristol Road
Located in the Tiong Bahru Singapore Improvement Trust estate, where many road names commemorate Chinese pioneers, this street is named after the China-born, well-known businessman, Seah Eu Chin (1805-83). Seah Eu Chin came to Singapore in 1823 and set up business as a merchant and commission agent. He was a pioneer in the gambier business, owning a large gambier plantation from Irwell Bank Road to Bukit Timah and Thomson roads. It was he who led the Chinese in welcoming Lord Dalhousie, the Governor General of India, in 1850 on his visit to Singapore during the time of Governor Butterworth. He was also a member of the Singapore Chamber of Commerce and a Justice of the Peace, and made an honorary magistrate in 1872. Seah Eu Chin also wrote the first account of the Chinese community in Singapore. He is the father of Seah Peck Seah, another well-known member of the Chinese community in the nineteenth century.
Eu Chin Street
The gambier king, Seah Eu Chin, after whom Eu Chin Street is named.
SOURCE: Raja-Singam, 1939:101-2
This street is named after the Penang-born millionaire tin miner, rubber estate and property owner, Eu Tong Sen (1877-1941), nicknamed the “King of Tin”. Tong Sen took over his father’s mining business in Perak and made a fortune. At 30 years he was one of the richest men in Asia. He had residences in both Malaya and Singapore. During his time, he was one of the wealthiest Chinese in Malaya, and was recorded as having donated a tank and an aeroplane to the British in World War I. Educated in China, he was the Chinese representative in the Federal Council between 1911 to 1920. He received the O.B.E. for his meritorious services. During his lifetime, he worked hard and gave generously to good causes in Britain, Singapore, Hong Kong and China.
In 1920, at age 42, Eu Tong Sen and two businessmen set up Lee Wah Bank to cater mainly to the Cantonese community. The ownership and operation remained within the Eu family until 1973 when the economic slump forced the family into a merger with United Overseas Bank.
Formerly part of Wayang Street, Eu Tong Sen Street was renamed after him in 1919 because he rebuilt the street and bought over the two existing Chinese opera theatres (Heng Seng Peng and Heng Wai Sun, now the People’s Park Complex). He also built another Chinese opera theatre in 1927, Tien Yien Moi Toi, on this street. This new opera theatre was later converted into a cinema and called the Queens Theatre, later renamed the Majestic Theatre.
Eu Tong Sen Street
An overview of Eu Tong Sen Street in the 1950s. The Majestic Theatre stands tall in the background.
He also built Eu Villa on Mount Sophia, while the now demolished Eu Court, a block of apartments at the corner of Stamford Road and Hill Street, was also named after him. Eu Villa was one of the largest houses before World War II, built at a cost of $1 million – a massive amount of money at that time. It was demolished in the 1980s.
SOURCE: MGCM, 1 Aug 1919; Archives & Oral History, 1983:120,134,140; Ramachandran, 1969:12; Tyers, 1976:156; Tan-Oehler, 2002:14
These roads commemorate a prominent Malay pioneer, Mohammed Eunos bin Abdullah (1876-1934). Eunos started out in the early twentieth century with the Master Attendant’s Office in Singapore and was later Harbour Master and Postmaster in Muar. He then returned to Singapore and helped set up the Malay newspaper, Utusan Melayu in 1912, lending his ability in editing to popularise the then only Malay language paper published in Singapore. Two years later, he founded another Malay newspaper, Lembaga Melayu, and for his contributions to the field of Malay journalism, was given the accolade “Father of Malay journalism”.
Eunos Abdullah was also active in the public sphere and the political life of the country: he served as Municipal Commissioner in the 1920s and was the first Malay to be elected to the Legislative Council in 1924. He was also a founding member of the Kesatuan Melayu Singapura, the first Malay political body which aimed to raise the political awareness of the Malays and to promote the importance of education among the community. Along with a fellow philanthropist, Haji Ambo Sooloh, Eunos Abdullah fought for a new home for the Malays affected by the clearance of the Kallang site for the construction of Singapore’s first airport.
In 1927, a 240 ha piece of land on the eastern part of the island, later named Kampong Melayu, was finally given in exchange for the Kallang site. In 1930, a road in honour of him was built through Kampong Melayu, the first of many to bear his name.
SOURCE: The Straits Times, 23 Feb 1988
Although the property owner wanted to name this road Exbury Road, the Municipal Commissioners decided to call it Evans Road after a former Commissioner and Protector of Chinese, W. Evans.
SOURCE: MMCI, 21 Mar 1941; MPMCOM, 25 Apr 1941
This road is named after Evelyn Young, the wife of Sir Arthur Young, Governor of the Straits Settlements, 1911-1919.
SOURCE: Raja-Singam, 1939:102
Off Upper East Coast Road, this road was officially named in 1970.
SOURCE: IRD, 15 Sep 1970, MC 70, VII, Enc. No. 112
This road is named after Sir Clement Everitt, of the legal firm of Sisson and Delay.
SOURCE: Raja-Singam, 1939:102
See D’Almeida Street
This road is named after one of José d’Almeida’s houses (Everton).
SOURCE: Braga-Blake and Oehlers, 1992:94
This road is named after See Ewe Boon (1859-1909), who was from 1890 till his death the compradore of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in Singapore. He was the son of See Eng Watt.
SOURCE: Raja-Singam, 1939:102
Formerly Paya Lane, this road was renamed after an English town in 1928 in harmony with other English place names in the vicinity (such as Devonshire Road and Dublin Road).
SOURCE: MPMCOM, 1 May 1928