Street Names in Colonial Singapore

Abstract

A street-name system based on European perception of landscape ordering and urban functioning officially existed in colonial Singapore. Con- currently, there existed alternative systems of street names that originated among the immigrant Asian communities. Emphases of purpose and function as well as linguistic origin were reflected in the applied street names. Singapore had a syncretic character, not the unified one inherent in the vision of the official street names. FROM the earliest days of settlement at Singapore, British East India Com- pany officials and, later, municipal authorities sought to impose a system of street names that reflected their vision of what a colonial city should be and how it should function. From a European viewpoint, such a system was essential to effect many activities, such as levying assessments and taxes, fighting fires, and counting the population as well as general surveillance of the city's inhabitants. Yet naming a place, whether as a deliberate act or informally, is also a social activity; it embodies some of the struggle for control over the means of symbolic production in the urban landscape. For example, place-names honoring public figures have been cited as indicators of nationalist feeling or community identity (Zelinsky 1983; Stump 1988). On the other hand, the renaming of streets in postcolonial societies can help to divest the landscape of its colonial associations and reinforce the legitimacy of the newly independent state. Establishment of a network of official street names not only introduces order and differentiation into an originally amorphous landscape but also reflects the mental images of the dominant culture. In colonial Singapore, official names were assigned at municipal meetings on the approval of the municipal commissioners. Once decided, notice of new or changed street names was advertised in the press, and the schedule was circulated among heads of various governmental departments, including the chief of police, the commissioner of lands, and the secretary of the Fire Insurance Associ- ation. The official naming process was strongly dominated by the opinions of municipal and governmental officers and, occasionally, those of influential property owners, but it was relatively impervious to the views of people who lived on or used the streets. Street nomenclature became a means by which the authorities were able to project onto the urban landscape their perceptions of what different areas in the city represented. Yet the actual naming of streets was far more complicated than the institutional procedure suggests. Although the authorities controlled the process insofar as the selection and application of names were concerned,