mip patron tun dr mahathir mohamad honoured - Malaysian Institute ...

CHARLES READE (1880—1933)
- FIRST GOVERNMENT TOWN PLANNER IN MALAYSIA -
Charles Compton Reade (1880–
1933) was a town planner
who supported the garden
city movement of the early
twentieth century.
Born in Invercargill, New
Zealand in 1880, Reade
became the major figure in
disseminating Garden City
ideas in Australia. Reade saw
the evils of inner city slums
while working as a journalist
in England and began writing
of the need for improved town
planning, becoming active in
the Garden Cities and Town
Planning Association of Great
Britain, of which he was acting
secretary and editor for its
magazine in 1913.
Charles Reade In 1914–15 he
led a lecture tour through
five Australian States and
New Zealand. South Australia
appointed Reade as a town
planning adviser in 1916 and
later he became its first
official Town Planner in 1918
and he retained the position
until 1920. In 1917 he drew up
plans for an Adelaide garden
suburb, initially with a working
title of Mitcham Garden Suburb
and officially named Colonel
Light Gardens.
The Royal Town Planning
Institute was only formed in
1914 (and Reade was one of
its associate founder) and the
first British University giving
town planning courses was only
offered in Liverpool in 1916.
Just before the outbreak of the
first World War (1914), Reade
went to Australia with W.R
Davidge (architect, surveyor
and planner) to propagate the
Garden City movement cause.
He gave numerous lectures
on the Garden City concept
in many Australian town and
subsequently was appointed as
town planning advisor to the
South Australian government in
1916.
In South Australia, he
introduced a town planning
legislature, established the
South Australia town planning
department, and complete a
Charles Compton Reade (1880—1933)
number of planning schemes.
For example, Mitcham Garden
Suburb in Adelaide, is today
a heritage garden suburb,
renamed Colonel Light
Garden, Reade applied the
Garden City concept in many
of his layout even suggested
a second park belt system to
Adelaide, further enchanting
the existing park belt laid out
by Colonel William Light (the
son to Captain Francis Light of
Penang).
Reade convened Australia’s
first two town planning and
housing conferences in 1917
and 1918. He also twice tried
to get town planning legislation
through the State legislature:
on the first occasion it was
defeated by the propertyoriented
upper House and on
the second was passed but was
heavily amended by the House.
Reade then left Australia for
overseas planning positions,
establishing a town planning
department in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaya in 1921 and moving to
Northern Rhodesia in 1929.
Reade’s lasting legacy (apart
from the establishment and
growth of the Federal Town
Planning Department) is the
slightly less known new town of
Kuala Kubu Bharu –Malaya first
new town and along the lines
of the garden city ideology.
He committed suicide in South
Africa in 1933, only nine days
after becoming Chief Planning
Officer of Witwatersrand.
CONTRIBUTION OF CHARLES
READE
A number of local planning
academicians and an increasing
number of international
historians have recently rescued
Reade from obscurity and
acknowledged his contribution
towards the development of
the town planning service in
South Australia, Malaya, and
Northern Rhodesia.
Reade in particular was
recognized as one of the first
generation of self-styled town
planner working in the British
colonies promoting the cause
of town planning within a
generally hostile environment
to town planning (Home, 2000):
such hostilities are largely
a conflict between public
interest ideology; unfetish
property development; and a
failure to appreciate political
sensitivity within an indirect an
indirect British rule in Malaya.
Two major areas of historical
interests framed this article.
Firstly, his planning ideologies
and methods applied (replanning
and redistribution of
lots)2 and secondly, to a lesser
extent, the garden city design
principles which he steadfastly
held throughout his whole
career till his untimely death
in Johannesburg, South Africa
in 1933.
Both ideologies were ‘alien’ to
landowners and their agents
in Malaya. Such methods and
ideologies provide a fascinating
analysis of conflicting interests
within a British rule favoring
appeasing property interest
and maintaining the status
quo over the social concerns
of eradicating and prevention
of slum and haphazard
development in the major
towns of British Malaya (the
task Reade was appointed to
handle).
Reade established a small town
planning department in Kuala
Lumpur on 18th January
1921. He did an immediate
survey of the conditions
of towns in the country
and reported this to the
government. His report on the
need for a permanent town
planning machinery for Malaya,
entitled “Town Planning And
Development In The Federated
Malay States (1922)” has been
considered an important
piece of historical document,
promoting the need for a town
planning machinery for the
country (Goh Ban Lee, 1990).
In it, he outlined important
aspects of town planning
requirements and the need for
a legislature to manage the
growth of towns in a orderly
manner, emphasizing on
prevention rather than cure,
the difference between
planning and sub-division,
economies under Town
Planning etc.
Source : Kamalruddin Shamsudin,
Federal Department of Town and
Regional Planning
NEWSLETTER OF THE MALAYSIAN INSTITUTE OF PLANNERS 7