Chijmes
November 2019
Originally known as the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ), which was a premier girls’ school established in 1854 by an order of French Catholic nuns. It was originally located within a self-contained city block bound by Victoria Street, Bras Basah Road, North Bridge Road and Stamford Road, and encompassed the English-language primary and secondary schools of CHIJ, a Chinese-medium school called St Nicholas Girls’ School, an orphanage, nuns’ quarters, and a chapel.
Cathedral of the Good Shepard
November 2019
In as early as 1822, Stamford Raffles gave the Catholic Church land at Bras Basah. However, it was only with the arrival of Father J. B. Boucho in 1832 that the first Catholic chapel was built there. The wood-and-attap construction was built at a cost of 700 Spanish dollars, with the money raised through public subscription. The old site was later converted into a school that became St Joseph’s Institution (now the Singapore Art Museum).
In February 1843, a French priest, Father Jean-Marie Beurel, managed to convince the government to provide the Catholic mission with a plot of land at the corner of Queen Street and Bras Basah Road. The plot became the location for the Church of the Good Shepherd. The foundation stone was laid on 18 June 1843 by John Conolly, a merchant resident in Singapore.
Competed in 1847, this cathedral complex houses a crypt, adoration chapel & heritage exhibit gallery. It is the oldest surviving Catholic church in Singapore.
St Joseph's Institution/Singapore Art Museum
The history of the former SJI building began with Father Jean-Marie Beurel, who was instrumental in raising funds not only for this boys’ school, but also for the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd and the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (present site of CHIJMES). Beurel raised money for the boys’ school after establishing the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd in 1847, as he felt strongly that “a church without a school is like a king without progeny”. St Joseph’s Institution (SJI), was completed in 1867.
Source: https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_1625_2009-12-31.html?s=st%20joseph%20institute
St. Joseph Church
On 30 June 1825, Portuguese priest Francisco da Silva Pinto e Maia arrived in Singapore and established the Portuguese Mission in the British colony. He was given ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Singapore by archbishop of Goa, Manuel de S. Galdino. At the time, there were only a handful of Catholics in Singapore, and he was the only Catholic priest in the colony.
Maia conducted mass at the Beach Road residence of his friend Jose d’Almeida (Dr), until a 60 ft by 30 ft chapel on Bras Basah Road was blessed and opened on 9 June 1833.
To cater to the growing Catholic population, Maia then went about building a church on a plot of land between Victoria Street and Queen Street, which he had acquired from Samuel George Bonham, assistant to the then Resident of Singapore. Prior to his arrival in Singapore, Maia was a professor at St Joseph’s Seminary in Macao. In addition, the land and houses he bought in Singapore were paid for with funds from the Portuguese Missions in China, whose procuration house was St Joseph’s College in Macau. Maia thus intended to name the church after St Joseph.
June 2022
June 2022
Maia fell sick and died on 17 February 1850. His successor Vincente de Santa Catarina took over the project, and the church was blessed and opened in 1853. As the congregation continued to grow, two wings were added in 1868. However, it eventually became overcrowded as the Catholic population grew.
On 21 August 1904, the foundation stone for a new church building was laid on the site of the existing church by bishop of Macau, Dom Joao Paolino de Azevedo e Castro, the impetus behind the project. Construction of the new building, however, began only after the old church was demolished in 1906. On 30 June 1912, the completed church was blessed and opened by Castro.
On 1 July 1981, an agreement signed between Gregory Yong, archbishop of Singapore, and Arquiminio Rodrigues da Costa, bishop of Macao, became effective. The agreement entailed the transfer of the parish of St Joseph to the ordinary jurisdiction of the archbishop of Singapore.
The National Museum
November 2019
The establishment of a museum was first mooted in 1823, when Stamford Raffles proposed founding a college in Singapore. However, no concrete actions were taken to realise the plans over the next two decades. It was only in early 1849 when the Temenggong of Johor presented two gold coins to Singapore, which were then given to the Singapore Library, that an attempt was made. Later the same year, a small museum was set up within the library, which was then housed in the Singapore Institution (renamed Raffles Institution in 1868) at Bras Basah, one of Singapore’s oldest schools. However, not much attention was paid to developing the museum after this initial enthusiasm. In September 1862, Singapore Library, along with the museum, was relocated to the Town Hall (present-day Victoria Theatre).
More than a decade later, in 1873, discussions for a government-supported, purpose-built museum finally began. A committee was appointed to organise an “exhibition of colonial products” – an initiative launched in different colonies across the British Empire – in connection with the Exhibition Building (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) in South Kensington, London. The committee was also tasked to oversee the establishment of an institution that was eventually named Raffles Library and Museum on 16 July 1874. The early years of its establishment were focused on building up the library’s collections, while not much attention was paid to the museum. Initially located at the Town Hall, the Library and Museum temporarily moved to the premises of Raffles Institution in December 1876.
In the early 1880s, the municipality discussed the possibility of having a separate building constructed for the Raffles Library and Museum. Land on Stamford Road – the National Museum’s current site – was subsequently allotted for this purpose. Work began in 1884 and the building was completed three years later. On 12 October 1887, then Governor of the Straits Settlements Frederick Weld officiated the opening ceremony of the institution by unlocking the building’s front door. At the time, the museum was intended to be primarily a repository of zoological specimens, documenting the natural history of Singapore and the region.
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