The foundation of Kampung Melaka and the context of trade and settlement in early colonial “Farquhar-era” Singapore
Kampung Melaka, found on both the north and south banks of the upper reaches of Singapore River. was one of two Malay settlements to have developed in Singapore as an outcome of inducements by the two early British administrators of 19th century Singapore to get Malay settlers from around the region to settle in the new trade post.
Raffles encouraged settlers from his relatively insignificant British post of Bengkulu in southwest Sumatra (archaic form Bangkahulu, later Bengkulu, rendered “Bencoolen” in English, this minor port faces the Indian Ocean), who formed Kampung Bengkulu in what is today Bencoolen Street.
Meanwhile Singapore’s first British Resident, William Farquhar, who had been the British Resident of Melaka (1813-1818) during its British interregnum (1795-1818), sought settlers from Melaka, who settled in the upper reaches of Singapore River, as mentioned.
Kampung Melaka is noted in a number of early maps of Singapore, one of which writes the name “Campong Malacca” in big, uppercase letters across land that was being laid out with streets, indicated in broken lines.
By the 1890s, the name Kampong Melaka was used by the Chinese for street names in Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese across both North Kampong Melaka and South Kampong Melaka.
Munsyi Abdullah’s Library and a major loss for Malay manuscripts: Kg Melaka’s fire of 1849
One impetus for further development and rebuilding of Kampung Melaka in the course of the 19th century (which contained shophouses owned by Malays and Jawi Peranakan by the 1870s) must surely have been a disastrous fire that engulfed the wooden buildings in this quarter on 2 Sep 1849, as recorded in the Singapore Free Press. This event, which broke out at 2pm on that fateful day, was recorded to have destroyed more than 200 houses in less than three hours.
One of Kg Melaka’s residents in the early 19th century was Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munsyi, a Malay writer of Melakan Jawi Peranakan ancestry (he has both Tamil and Arab in his ancestry besides Malay) and also Raffles’ scribe and language teacher (Munsyi is an honorific denoting a language teacher), among other vocations.
Sadly for Abdullah, the fire in his home district of Kg Melaka caused him indefinite and incalculable loss of property. Perhaps the most painful aspect of this tragedy was the loss of his Library, which contained his collection of Malay manuscripts.
Although lithographic printing in Malay had already begun in Singapore, operated by a large number of Javanese, Malay, Arab (notably concentrated in Kampung Gelam . Kampong Glam town), a great number of texts circulating during this transition period were still in manuscript form, painstakingly copied by hand and often embellished with illumination. At least a few of his manuscripts would also have been old copies. In any case this is a tragic loss, made all the more severe because this event, along with the site, is all but virtually forgotten today.
Community
However, Kampung Melaka was home to not only the Malays and Jawi Peranakan from Melaka, but also traders from Palembang, including Palembang’s community of Hadhrami Arabs. This suggests that Kampong Melaka was also a key site for Malay and Jawi Peranakan traders (Tamils, Arabs) from other neighbouring Malay ports such as Palembang.
As a mark suggestive of its importance and significance in early Singapore history, Singapore’s oldest trader’s mosque is found in this virtually forgotten merchants’ quarter. Masjid Omar Kampung Melaka was founded in 1820 by Syed Omar Ali Aljunied, a Hadhrami Arab from the old port of Palembang in South Sumatra.
Kampung Melaka today
Today, the mosque is the only surviving element of this early Singapore merchant’s quarter – the rest of Kampung Melaka’s built fabric comprising shophouses, a network of streets, and houses belonging to Malays and Jawi Peranakan (Tamil and Arab Peranakans) have all been demolished in the course of the 1970s.
Today the hulking mass of the monolithic Ministry of Manpower building (formerly the Ministry of Labour) stands on top of much of what was the urban context and main entrance to Masjid Omar. This building wraps the old mosque on its southern side and blocks off its former entrance from the east; to its north the mosque is hemmed in my Park Regis Singapore. Its only street access today is via Keng Cheow Street, which used to be its back entrance to its Qibla wall; its original street entrance was at the head of a T-junction formed by Omar Road and Mosque Street; both streets and all their shophouses have been expunged.
This article is in progress… More soon!
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