Bukit Brown Cemetery, also known as the Bukit Brown Municipal Cemetery or the Bukit Brown Chinese Cemetery, is a cemetery in Singapore. Originally owned by George Henry Brown, he purchased the land on hilly terrain and it became known as Brown's Hill, translated locally to Bukit Brown.
After ownership for the land was passed around, it was eventually acquired by the government, who opened Bukit Brown Cemetery there in 1922. The cemetery acted as a Chinese burial ground until its closure in 1973, with about 100,000 graves.
In 2011, the government designated the area for residential development which was met with backlash from activists and, in 2012, exhumed 3,700 graves to build an 8-lane highway. Bukit Brown Cemetery is believed to be the largest Chinese cemetery outside of China and is also the location of many of Singapore's earliest pioneers.
Etymology
The cemetery and the surrounding area are referred to as Bukit Brown, after George Henry Brown (1826–1882), a British merchant and ship owner. He had purchased land on hilly terrain and the area became known as Brown's Hill and was translated locally in Malay to Bukit Brown, bukit meaning hill.[1]
Bukit Brown was also the first official location in Singapore to have an English and Malay name.[2] The hill where the cemetery is located is referred to as Mount Pleasant, which Brown named. It is also referred to locally as Coffee Hill or Kopi Sua.[3]
History
Early establishments (1800s)
Bukit Brown Cemetery was named after 19th-century British merchant and ship owner George Henry Brown (1826–1882). He arrived in the Straits Settlements (present-day Singapore) in the 1840s and lived there till his death after an accident in Penang on 5 October 1882.[1]
Brown purchased land on a hill which he called Mount Pleasant and built a cottage on it called Fern Cottage. He had also tried planting nutmeg and coffee on Mount Pleasant but was unsuccessful. As the land belonged to him, it was commonly referred to as Brown's Hill, translated locally in Malay to Bukit Brown.[1]
Brown sold the land to Mootapa Chitty, a Chettiar, and Lim Chu Yi who later sold the land to three Hokkien Ong clan members – Ong Hew Ko, Ong Ewe Hai, and Ong Chong Chew – who, in the 1870s, turned the land into a private cemetery for Chinese people of the Ong clan and became known as the Seh Ong Cemetery.[4] All 3 of them were buried at Bukit Brown Cemetery after their deaths.[5]
Municipal acquisition and opening (1900–2000)
The first mention of a municipal[a] Chinese cemetery was in 1906, where Peranakan physician and social activist Lim Boon Keng suggested at a municipal meeting for a proper burial site for the Chinese, which was unanimously agreed upon by the commission.[6] Singaporean politician Tan Kheam Hock was also a supporter of establishing a public Chinese cemetery and, in 1917, asked about whether progress had been made in acquiring land at Bukit Brown and repurposing it as a Chinese burial ground.[7] When Bukit Brown Cemetery was opened, he managed the cemetery till his death.[8]
In 1919, the Municipal Commission acquired the land through compulsory acquisition after pressure had been put on them to open a municipal cemetery for the Chinese despite the resistance from the Ong clan, who owned the land at the time.[9] In 1921, by-laws for Bukit Brown Cemetery were established to regulate burials for the Chinese.[10]
It was then opened as Bukit Brown Municipal Cemetery on 1 January 1922.[9] In 1923, the road leading up to Bukit Brown Cemetery was named Bukit Brown Road, after Brown, and another road leading up to the cemetery was named Kheam Hock Road, after Tan.[11] A cemetery temple was built with a temple caretaker running the temple. A priest was also hired that sold joss sticks and candles.[12]
When it was opened, Bukit Brown Cemetery was not very popular with the Chinese, having its first burial in August 1922. The municipal president stated that it was "not utilized to the extent which we had anticipated", siting the main reason being the grave plot layouts. They later consulted with the Chinese Advisory Board and changed plot layouts to better account for the Chinese. This helped Bukit Brown Cemetery to become more popular amongst the Chinese community.[13][14] Following the cemetery's popularity, rest houses and wells were built along with hiring gardeners to maintain the cemetery.[15]
The Qingming Festival is also held regularly at Bukit Brown Cemetery, usually requiring traffic police to regulate the high traffic flow into the cemetery.[16][17][18]
By 1929, 40% of Chinese deaths in Singapore were buried at Bukit Brown Cemetery.[4] In 1941, Choa Chu Kang Cemetery was established as Bukit Brown Cemetery and Bidadari Cemetery were both running out of space.[19] In 1946, more grave plots at Bukit Brown Cemetery were released for people's whose reservations had been taken up during the Japanese occupation and used for pauper burials.[20][21]
In 1947, Bukit Brown Cemetery and Choa Chu Kang Cemetery were brought up in a municipal meeting by L. Rayman, concerned about the land use occupied by the cemeteries. An amendment was passed that limited the size of burial plots.[22] In 1965, the Public Works Department (PWD) exhumed 237 graves to realign Lornie Road off Adam Road.[23][24] Bukit Brown Cemetery was closed in 1973 with about 100,000 graves.[4]
Redevelopment plans for Bukit Brown and conservation efforts (2000–present)
From 2011 to 2012, the area was designated for residential development[b] and many activists were upset by this decision as Bukit Brown Cemetery was "a distinctive slice of the multi-ethnic country's fast disappearing heritage"[27] and that it should be preserved.[28][29][30] This included exhuming 3,700 graves to make space for an 8-lane highway.[31]
In 2012, it was announced by then-Minister of State for National Development, Tan Chuan-Jin, that 5,000 graves would be exhumed to make way for a new 8-lane highway, Lornie Highway, that would cut through the cemetery.[32] This number was later reduced to 3,746 on 19 March 2012.[33][34][35] Construction for Lornie Highway began in 2011 and was expected to be completed by 2016 but was eventually completed in 2018.[36] During construction, Bukit Brown Road was replaced by a section of the Lornie Highway.[37]
The National Archives of Singapore (NAS) digitised and released the burial registers of Bukit Brown Cemetery between April 1922 and December 1972 online, as well as a map of the cemetery to help descendants check if their ancestor's graves were affected by the development.[38]
In 2016, Bukit Brown Cemetery's gates that were installed back in the 1920s were removed from their original posts, cleaned and repaired, and reinstalled at the mouth of a new access road near its original location.[41][42]
In 2017, the Singapore Heritage Society launched a self-guided trail through Bukit Brown Cemetery that takes visitors through 25 gravestones.[43] A grave belonging to Chen Yi Kuan collapsed due to nearby construction works for Mount Pleasant MRT station on the Thomson–East Coast MRT Line.[44]
In August 2024, an outdoor display, Sounds of the Earth, was opened by Bukit Brown conservation groups. The display features 80 unclaimed artifacts that were collected in 2013, during the construction of Lornie Highway.[37][45]
Environment
Vegetation
Due to its dense vegetation, Bukit Brown Cemetery helps to prevent flooding from rain by surface runoff and serve as a "carbon storage" site. In a position paper by the Singapore Heritage Society, they stated that Bukit Brown Cemetery should be kept for these reasons. Other organizations also requested the government to carry out "a comprehensive environmental impact assessment" of Bukit Brown Cemetery.[46]
In the 1950s, Bukit Brown Cemetery was cleared of its vegetation, only for the cemetery to be overgrown with vegetation again.[47] This has lead Bukit Brown Cemetery's vegetation to be described as a "neglected space" with an "unrecognisable landscape".[48]
Bukit Brown Cemetery is also known for its wildlife, being populated with mammals and birds. This has made Bukit Brown Cemetery a popular location with photographers, nature lovers, and bird-watchers.[49] In 2012, Nature Society (Singapore) recorded 90 resident and migrant birds along with 48 species of animal living at Bukit Brown Cemetery.[50] Animals seen at Bukit Brown Cemetery include:
Graves at Bukit Brown Cemetery were built with different materials from Europe and East Asia using traditional building techniques from the 1920s and 1930s. Other materials used to build graves include bricks, commonly from Alexandra Brickworks and Jurong Brickworks, and plaster from Shanghai, China.[53] Graves also represent different social statuses of people through decorations on graves such as decorative tiles from Europe and Japan. Other types of tiles include Peranakan tiles, tiles named after Chinese immigrants who came to Singapore and inspired Straits Chinese culture. Graves were also traditionally built on the side of hills due to feng shui practices by the Chinese.[2][54]
Graves typically included inscripted stone panels, stone reliefs, and statues with materials from quarries in Singapore or Malaysia. Shops selling sculpted stones imported from China were also found commonly along Kheam Hock Road. Marble headstones with lead lettering were also used, being imported from Europe. Graves were also decorated with ceramic portraits of the deceased in an oval shape on the headstone. The techniques to make these portraits emerged from France and due to the frequency of these portraits shows that it had reached Singapore around the 20th-century.[54]
A sepoy statue standing by a grave. These statues were believed to act as guardians to the deceased.[55]
Notable burials
Due to Bukit Brown Cemetery's long history and multiple graves, it is believed to be the largest Chinese cemetery outside of China with about 100,000 graves.[27] It is also the location of many of Singapore's earliest pioneers.[56][57]
^Chua, Grace (6 February 2012). "Heritage society 'disappointed' with Govt's Bukit Brown decision". The Straits Times. p. 7. Retrieved 14 August 2024 – via NewspaperSG. It added it was 'deeply disappointed' with the Government's decision to continue with a road through part of the historical burial ground, adding it regretted there was no public construction before zoning and road-building decisions were made.