(street) name? - Association of Dutch Businessmen

SINGAPORE
What’s in a (street) name – Part II
By Barry Doesburg
In ADB Magazine of March 2005 we learned about
the lives of Jose d’Almeida (1784-1850), George
Drumgold Coleman (1795-1844), Tan Tock Seng
(1798-1850), Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900-1979),
‘Whampoa’ Hoo Ah Kay (1816-1880) and Ahmad
Ibrahim (1927-1962). They all have in common that
they are significant to Singapore history and that
street names have been named after them. In this
issue we will touch on a few other names of famous
Singaporeans.
Cecil Street / Clementi
Avenue
Cecil Street and Clementi Avenue are
named after Sir Cecil Clementi Smith
(1840-1916). He was Lieutenant Governor
of Ceylon before being appointed Governor
of the Straits Settlements from 1887 to
1893. He was educated at St Paul’s School
and Corpus Christi Cambridge, and in 1862
he was elected one of the first student
interpreters at Hong Kong, where he
became colonial Treasurer. In 1878 he was
transferred to the Straits settlements as
Colonial Secretary and became Governor
in 1887. He also succeeded in putting
down several Chinese secret societies in
the Straits Settlements, such as those in
Singapore, for which he received the
gratitude of the merchants that traded in
the region. Later he became president of
the commission of Inquiry on the Trinidad
riots in 1903 and was chief British delegate at
International Opium Commission Shanghai in 1909.
Cecil Street was built on reclaimed land carried
out under Telok Ayer Reclamation project between
1879 and 1888. Clementi Avenue (formerly
Reformatory Road, because of a boys’ home) was
located in the New Town that was developed on
land once occupied by squatters and the British
armed forces barracks.
Napier Road / Tanglin Road
Napier Road is named after William ‘Royal Billy’
Napier (b. 1804), the first lawyer in Singapore in
1833. He arrived in Singapore in 1831 and married
George Coleman’s widow, Maria Frances. Napier
Road originally led to his house (‘Tang Leng’), which
he built in 1854 on 27 ha of hilly land. He was one
of the founders of the Singapore Free Press and a
shareholder of the Raffles Library. Later he became
the Lieutenant Governor of Labuan (Borneo’s
northern coast) because of his friendship with Sir
James Brooke.
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Vol.16 • No. 5 • June 2006
Tanglin/Napier Road in the 1880s
Tanglin Road got its name from Napier’s house.
The house was probably named after the Chinese
twa tang leng, which means ‘great east hill peaks’.
After Raffles’ allotment in 1822, the Chinese,
mainly Teochews, ventured out of Chinatown and
colonized the tiger infested Tanglin area, growing
pepper, nutmeg and gambier. After the Chinese
came the Europeans, mainly Scotsmen, who started
their spice plantations and built bungalows and
villas on the various hills. Still many Scottish
personal and place names are featured in the area:
Balmoral (Queen Victoria’s favorite residence in
Scotland), Edinburgh, Claymore (house owned by
Captain Scott), Cluny and Scott. Another one is
Tyersall, William Napier’s estate and house in the
Tanglin area which covered sixty-seven acres of
land was built in 1854 and later replaced by New
Tyersall (or Istana Tyersall), the palatial Singapore
residence of Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor.
Tyersall Istana (http://www.baum.com.au)
Oxley Road / Killiney Road
Oxley Road is named after the Irish surgeon Dr.
Thomas Oxley (1805-1886), who lived on his nutmeg
plantation in the area bounded by River Valley,
Tank, Orchard and Grange Roads. Oxley came to
Singapore in 1830 from Penang and was the Senior
Surgeon for the Straits Settlements in 1844. He