Bukit Brown Cemetery, also known as the Bukit Brown Municipal Cemetery or the Bukit Brown Chinese Cemetery, is located in Novena in the Central Region of Singapore. The site of the cemetery was originally owned by George Henry Brown, a British merchant. It became known as Brown's Hill, which was translated into Malay as Bukit Brown. The site was eventually given to the Seh Ong Kongsi, who opened a private clan cemetery there in the 1870s.
Beginning in the 1880s, cemeteries in Singapore grew rapidly. In 1887, the Legislative Council passed a bill that limited their creation, particularly limiting Chinese cemeteries. The Chinese community called for the creation of a municipal cemetery, having few options for burying their dead, with notable supporters of the concept including Tan Kheam Hock and Lim Boon Keng. The Municipal Commission began looking for suitable sites and settled on the Seh Ong Kongsi's land, acquiring the site in 1919 through compulsory acquisition.
Three years later, the Commission opened Bukit Brown Cemetery. Although initially unpopular with the Chinese community, after some modifications, use increased. By 1929, forty percent of Chinese buried in Singapore were interred at Bukit Brown Cemetery. The cemetery ran out of unreserved plots in 1944, and when the last burials were held, the cemetery was closed in 1973, containing about 100,000 graves. In 2011, the government designated the area for residential development, leading to protests from activists who believed the cemetery should be preserved. The following year, around 3,700 graves were exhumed to build an eight-lane highway. The cemetery was since designated as "at risk" on the 2014 World Monuments Watch, and there have been proposals to designate it a national monument.
Bukit Brown Cemetery is believed to be the largest Chinese cemetery outside of China, and is the burial location of many of Singapore's earliest pioneers. Preservation advocates support maintaining Bukit Brown and other nearby cemeteries for their vegetation, wildlife, and heritage. Traditional Chinese festivals are regularly held at these cemeteries.
Etymology The cemetery and the surrounding area are referred to as Bukit Brown (bukit meaning hill in Malay), after George Henry Brown, the original owner of the land where the cemetery is situated. The cemetery is also known as the Bukit Brown Municipal Cemetery or the Bukit Brown Chinese Cemetery. The name was the first official designation in Singapore to by a hybrid of multiple languages, including both English and Malay. Brown named the hill where the cemetery is located Mount Pleasant.
History
1800s: Early establishments
George Henry Brown (1826–1882) was a nineteenth century British merchant and ship owner who arrived in Singapore (then part of the Straits Settlements) in the 1840s and lived there until his death after an accident in Penang on 5 October 1882. He owned three ships and made horse carriages.
Brown's business G. H. Brown & Co was located at Raffles Place. Brown married Ellen Brown (1827–1903) in 1854 and they had multiple children. Brown was known for his interest in music; he played the organ at St. Andrew's Cathedral. Brown also owned multiple plots of land in the colony; these included a plot that had hilly terrain, which he called Mount Pleasant. Brown built a house he called Fern Cottage at Mount Pleasant. His attempts to grow nutmeg and coffee on the site were unsuccessful. The land was referred to as Brown's Hill, locally translated into Malay as Bukit Brown. It was listed as Bukit Brown by British map makers.
Brown later sold the land to Indian Chettiar Mootapa Chitty and Chinese businessman Lim Chu Yi, who in turn sold the land to Ong Hew Ko, Ong Ewe Hai, and Ong Chong Chew. The trio gave the land to the Seh Ong Kongsi in 1872 who, sometime in the 1870s, turned the land into a private cemetery for their members, leading it to be known as Seh Ong Cemetery; the land was initially planned to be used as a village for Chinese immigrants. The Hokkien Huay Kuan also buried their clan members there.
1900–2000: Bukit Brown Cemetery
Background In early colonial Singapore, various ethnic communities built cemeteries according to their practices; for example, the Malays buried their dead in sand ridges while the Chinese preferred hillsides. Prior to 1857, cemeteries in Singapore were considered "communal responsibilities" and the British government exerted little control over burial locations from the multiple ethnic communities. However, by the 1880s, expansion efforts of the city centre were restricted by the scarcity of suitable land; surrounding land around the city was deemed unusable as it was either swampland or taken up by cemeteries.
Due to the Chinese belief in burying their dead on hillsides, many suitable pieces of land for residences were taken up by Chinese cemeteries. This belief led to concerns about sanitation, as the dead occupied the highest and more desirable sites, while the living resided on lower, more swampy land. Chinese cemeteries were increasingly seen by the authorities as both insanitary and restricting future development, leading to growing contention between the British authorities and Chinese communities in Singapore.
In 1887, a bill, which authorised the regulation, licensing, and inspection of cemeteries, was created in an attempt to control the development of cemeteries, particularly targeting Chinese cemeteries. When it was first introduced at a Legislative Council meeting, it was considered controversial by the Chinese community as it attacked their spaces and ignored their funerary practices. Seah Liang Seah, a Chinese councillor, requested a postponement of the bill as it "seriously affected the interests of the Chinese community, mostly those of the respectable class." Following multiple petitions by the Chinese community, the bill was postponed and subsequently left in abeyance until 1896, when the issue of burials was reintroduced.
The reintroduced bill was updated, giving the control of burial grounds to the Municipal Commission rather than the Legislative Council. The Commission could license, inspect burial grounds, close burial grounds if they were deemed unsafe, and impose penalties for improper corpse disposal. The control being given to the Commission was also important to the Chinese, as their views were considered more represented on that body than on the Council, which governed at a larger colonial level. Another difference between the 1896 bill and the 1887 bill was that private burial grounds would be allowed if licensed, instead of being fully prohibited. These restrictions led to private Chinese cemeteries becoming more prevalent, with a lack of public cemeteries for poor Chinese labourers, who resorted to illegally dumping their dead along five-foot ways and public places in the hopes that authorities who discover the bodies would bury them.
Municipal acquisition and creation of Bukit Brown Talks on the creation of a municipal Chinese cemetery had been ongoing since the 1880s, following complaints of restrictions placed on existing Chinese cemeteries. In the early twentieth century, following closures of cemeteries with maximum occupancies, older cemeteries being redeveloped, and fewer private cemeteries being made, the creation of a municipal cemetery became more important. Due to the urgency of the situation, some Chinese did not mind being buried in a municipal cemetery if it meant ignoring traditional burial methods involving geomancy. The first official mention of a municipal Chinese cemetery was as early as 1904, when a group of Chinese residents, including Chinese social activist Lim Boon Keng, suggested that the commissioners "set aside a burial ground for their use to be managed on the lines of the Christian Cemetery". In 1906, Lim again suggested the inception of a proper burial site for the Chinese community, which the Commission unanimously agreed to. Straits-born businessman Ching Keng Lee also agreed on its importance, as it helped Chinese people of lower or middle income to afford burials. Singaporean politician Tan Kheam Hock also supported the establishment of a public Chinese cemetery. In Song Ong Siang's One Hundred Years' History of the Chinese in Singapore (1923), Tan was described as their "remembrancer" on the Municipal Board. After Bukit Brown Cemetery was opened, Tan managed the cemetery until his death.
Given the breadth of support for a municipal cemetery, the Municipal Commission began sourcing suitable locations. The Hokkien cemetery at Keppel Harbour and the cemetery at Holland Road were initially considered for use, but were eventually rejected. Another option was at Bidadari, where the existing Bidadari Cemetery was already located, but the Commission rejected it as "the burial customs of the Chinese were incompatible with the general ambience of a site already consecrated to the Christian dead." The municipal president further stated that "there might be clashing and inconvenience" if burials from different traditions happened to take place at the same time. In a meeting on 26 October 1917, the Municipal Commission announced their selection of the Seh Ong Cemetery, particularly due to its size and cost. Tan later brought up whether progress had been made in acquiring land at Bukit Brown to re-purpose it as a Chinese burial ground in a Municipal meeting in December. Following this decision, the Seh Ong Kongsi stated:The trustees preferred to retain the land for the use of their own kongsi. There was sufficient land to last the Seh Ong Kongsi for 200 years and they preferred to reserve it for themselves rather than sell it and make use of it for other kongsis or races of Chinese who were short of burial grounds. [sic] After multiple negotiations with the Seh Ong Kongsi, where they refused to give up the land every time, the commissioners decided that "the only other course left [for the Commission was] to approach the government to appropriate the land in spite of the unwillingness of the owners". In 1919, the Municipal Commission acquired a portion of the Seh Ong Kongsi's land through compulsory acquisition; they additionally acquired other nearby parcels of land. Two years were then spent on creating the layout for the cemetery, building footpaths and facilities, hiring staff, and establishing by-laws for the cemetery. The by-laws were created by a subcommittee of the Municipal Commission, which included commissioners Tan and See Tiong Wah, a municipal health officer, an engineer, and a legal adviser.
Opening of Bukit Brown and subsequent use
The cemetery was officially opened as Bukit Brown Municipal Cemetery on 1 January 1922. In 1923, the road leading to Bukit Brown Cemetery was named Bukit Brown Road, with another nearby road being named Kheam Hock Road after Tan. A cemetery temple was built, and a priest who sold joss sticks and candles was hired; the temple was modelled on the Thian Hock Keng Temple in Telok Ayer. When it opened, Bukit Brown Cemetery was not initially popular with the Chinese; its first burial occurred in August 1922. The municipal president stated it was "not utilised to the extent which we had anticipated", with the main reasons being the size and layout of the grave plots, although these were put in place to maximise space. Bukit Brown Cemetery was separated into two sections – "general" and "pauper" – to make it more inclusive. The general section's plots were about and cost $50 Strait whilst the pauper section's plots were . The pauper section was also located in a low-lying area that was regularly flooded, but there were no monetary cost for plots.