Structure, Sanitation, and Surveillance: Iron Markets in Late 19th Century Singapore

ABSTRACT

From 1873 to 1915, the Singapore Municipal Commission (SMC) constructed five markets in the town area, all built with iron as their main structural material. This paper focuses on the construction of two such markets, namely Clyde Terrace Market and Telok Ayer Market, two early iron markets constructed in 1873 and 1894 respectively.

Municipal markets were important sites not only to sell produce and fresh meats. They also fulfilled important representational objectives as sites of governance and health control in a colonial city. My paper posits iron as essential in performing this semiotic role. Iron, and other industrial building materials such as glazed tiles, were believed to be resistant to diseases just as they could withstand fire and water. It offered an alternative to masonry and timber in curbing the spread of miasma and germs through building materials and structural improvements.

It will examine three aspects instrumental to the transplantation of the western market model in an Asian context. First, establishing a link between the environment and the decision to adopt iron and its engineering technology and knowledge; second, analysing how the epistemological shift from miasma to germ theory impacted architecture; and third, evaluating the influence of sanitary specialists as key proponents shaping the urban environment.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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3. “Untitled”. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 5 November 1846, p.4.

4. “From the Daily Times, August 22^nd”. Straits Times Overland Journal, 26 August 1871, p.3.

5. Henry Russell Hitchcock, Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. 4th ed. Princeton: Yale University Press. 1987, p.179.

6. I referred to David Armstrong’s paper Public Health Spaces and The Fabrication of Identity here. A public health space is one in which sanitary science coupled with moral authority is imposed on a group of subjects. Actions seek to control and separate “anatomical space from environmental space”, as the latter was deemed to be detrimental to health. Vice versa, it also devised ways to remove and purify substances and waste that “passed between the anatomical space of the body and the geographical space that surrounded it”, such as through proper management of night soil and sewage. Lastly, it maintained this delicate balance of separation and removal by monitoring conditions of both bodies and environmental space, particularly in spaces within the “direct purview of sanitary authorities”, including schools, army, hospital and the prison, etc. David Armstrong, “Public Health Spaces and the Fabrication of Identity”. Sociology Vol. 27 No. 3, pp.393–410.

7. “An Ordinance for consolidating and amending the Law relating to Municipal Government (Ordinance No IX of 1887)”. Straits Settlements Government Gazette, 26 August 1887, p.1647–1716.

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9. ibid, p.124.

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26. ibid.

27. The inscription of the foundation stone of Clyde Terrace Market listed the following office bearers and personalities: His Excellency, Major-General Sir Harry St George Ord, Governor; the Most Worshipful The Marquis of Ripon, Grand Master; the Right Worshipful W.H. Read, Esq. District Grand Master; The Hon’ble Major J.F.A MacNair, R.A. Architect. See also T.H Sohst, Ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the Clyde Terrace Market at Singapore, the 29th day of March, 1873, by the Rt. Worshipful, the District Grand Master, W.H. Read. Singapore: Straits Times Press. 1873, p.13.

28. For an overview of McNair’s engineering career in Singapore, refer to his autobiography. John McNair and Frederick Adolphus, Prisoners their own warders: a record of the convict prison at Singapore in the Straits Settlements, established 1825. Westminster: Archibald Constable and Co. 1899.

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40. ibid.

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43. Kip Lin Lee, Telok Ayer Market. Singapore: Archives & Oral History Department. 1983. p.20.

44. “Obituary of James MacRitchie, 1847–1895”. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Vol. 122. 1895, p.377.

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53. Lee, Y.K 1977, p.191.

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57. Proceedings of the Hong Kong and South China Branch of the Sanitary Institute. London: The Royal Sanitary Institute Library. 1904, p.8.

58. ibid, pp.19–21.

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63. “The Paris Universal Exhibition”. The Lancet. 25 May 1889. p.1054.

64. ibid.

65. “The Municipal Slaughter-house of Brussels”. The Lancet. 17 December 1892. p.1049 and Tomkins, Henry. “Construction of Hospitals for Infectious Diseases”. The Lancet. 31 March 1888. p.647.

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67. “The Municipality”. The Straits Times, 5 March 1894. p.3.

68. T.R. Lewis and D.D. Cunningham, The Soil in its Relation to Disease: A Report of Observation. Calcutta: Government Printing Office. 1875.

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70. “The Free Press”. Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser. 19 August 1853, p.3.

71. “The Destruction of Town Rubbish”. Straits Times Weekly Issue. 29 October 1889, p.1; “The Singapore Municipality”. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser. 22 September 1891, p.182.

72. “Indian Patent Stone”. Weekly Sun. 6 May 1911, p.5.

73. “The New Town Market”. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (Weekly), 6 March 1894, p.131.

74. Lady Brassey, A Voyage in the Sunbeam: Our Home on the Ocean for Eleven Months. London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1894, p.401.

75. “The Reported Plague”. The Straits Times. 20 January 1897. p.3.

76. 2008. pp.423–4.

77. See “The Municipal Commission”. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser. 23 January 1896, p.8; “The Municipal Inspection of Food”. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser. 3 November 1898, p.8; “Summon Cases”. The Straits Times, 18 August 1903, p.4; “Filthy Market Stalls”. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 29 May 1907, p.12 and “Housing the Homeless”. The Straits Times. 13 September 1907, p.7.

78. “The Municipal Commission”. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser. 18 January 1894. p.2.

79. Markets were under the charge of the Straits Settlements government until 1876, and the responsibility was subsequently handed to the SMC, an autonomous municipal government under the charge of the Straits Settlement governor.

80. See “Municipal Commission”. The Singapore Free Press. 1 October 1889. p.407; “Municipal Commission”. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (Weekly). 12 July 1892. p.12; “Municipal Commission”. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 18 August 1892, p.2 and “Municipal Commission”. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 23 January 1894, p.8.

81. Halifax. 1921, pp.333–4.

82. “Municipal Commission”. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser. 6 February 1894, p.10.

83. ibid.

84. “By-Laws for Rochor, Clyde Terrace, Elleneborough, Orchard Road, Telok Ayer, and other Municipal Markets passed by the Municipal Commissioners of the Municipality of Singapore Town, on the 27 December 1894”. The Straits Settlements Government Gazette 1895. Singapore: Government Printing Office. 1895, p.118.

85. “The New Town Market”. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser. 3 January 1894. p.3.