An Interview with Victor Savage, Co-author of Singapore Street Names: A Study of Toponymics
From Desker Road to Xilin Avenue, street signs around Singapore recall the lives of people whose stories are a part of the nation’s history.
By Jimmy Yap
Singapore Street Names: A Study of Toponymics was first published in 2003 and is now into its fourth edition. The fact that it has gone through so many updates is a testament to its enduring popularity.
The work is co-authored by Victor Savage and Brenda Yeoh. When the book was first published two decades ago, both authors were colleagues at the Geography department at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Today, Yeoh continues to be a Professor with the department. She is also the Raffles Professor of Social Sciences at the university and is the research leader of the Asian Migration Research Cluster at the Asia Research Institute. Savage is a visiting fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University. Previously the head of the Geography department at NUS, he was also a director with the Office of Alumni Relations at the university.
In this interview, which has been condensed and edited for clarity, Jimmy Yap speaks to Savage to find out about how the book originally came about. Savage also recounts the stories behind how some of the entries were corrected or updated and reveals which road names gave him the biggest headaches.
Jimmy
So, Victor, the first edition of the book was Toponymics: A Study of Singapore Street NamesToponymics: A Study of Singapore Street Names, but the title and subtitle are switched around in the fourth edition. Why the change?
Victor
The original title was Toponymics. But the publisher said “Aiyoh, every time people ask what is toponymics.” They find it a strange word. And finally, the publisher said put “Singapore street names” as the title so people will know, and the subtitle as “a study of toponymics”. Topo means “place” and nymics means “name”. Streets only came about when cities developed; before that it was all place names, no such thing as street names.
Because we now live in an urban environment, we talk about street names, but basically place names are the main thing. I wrote a long article on the study of toponymics in the International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. It’s a big academic topic with all sorts of academics writing on it: linguists, anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists, geographers and historians.
Jimmy
What made you decide to publish a book on toponymics in 2003, 20 years ago?
Victor
Brenda and I got into this because of our PhDs. Brenda wrote her PhD on a very important topic on the colonial clash with locals in spatial terms. Locals and Europeans both wanted their names in place names, so there was a lot of conflict. She had a chapter, in fact, on toponymics in her PhD, and it’s in her book by Oxford University Press.
Jimmy
I think I have that book. Contesting Space, right?
Victor
Yeah, Contesting Space. So, I came to the topic, because my PhD was on a broader topic on Southeast Asia. In the long research I did for my book on Southeast Asia, I was studying the human-nature relationship with Southeast Asia, how the Westerners viewed nature in Southeast Asia. So, I found a lot of toponymics that Westerners wrote about. Why Bangkok was called Bangkok or Ayutthaya. I had a file on the side about all these.
I kept it at the back of my mind all the time. Then Brenda and I came together and decided to write this book. It took me a long time to get cracking on it.
Jimmy
What pushed you to write a book? Was there an event? A chat over coffee?
Victor
There was no event. We just thought it was a fascinating study. Because the place names at different points of history provide a record of what was happening at that point in time. And we were also worried that the eradication of place names due to modernisation would mean that all these important details would be lost. In the preface we wrote that [the book] was not an academic exercise; this was a Singapore exercise. We were very interested in inviting all Singaporeans to participate. And then we faithfully recorded their contributions. So, the names of the people who [came] forward to give us information are there in the book.
Jimmy
How long did it take to produce the first book?
Victor
It took us about 10 years of research. While Brenda was doing her PhD, she accessed the colonial records in the British Library. My part came from the open sources, interviewing people, etc. So it was a good combination.
Jimmy
How was the reception to the first edition?
Victor
It was very good. The book sold out. It has tremendous demand, a lot of commercial interest. The tourist guides buy it. The developers buy it. Our book is cited in commercials – the condos, etc. Their names come from place names. For example, there was a Scandal Point at the Padang, and Westin Hotel named its disco “The Scandal” from that toponymic reference, because it’s where all the gossip [broke] out.
Jimmy
Now we have the fourth edition. The third edition was about eight or nine years ago.
Victor
There is great demand for the book. When the publisher gives me trouble, I remind them that I’ve got five other publishers that would want this book. Nothing beats commercial success. For this kind of book, you’ve to piece together the bits and pieces, all the stories. It’s not something you can search. We understood this from the very first edition, so we knew that it [would] take time to cross-check.
One example is Mount Sophia. There is so much debate about who it’s named after. The owner of the land, Prinsep, had a daughter named Sophia. And then there was a headmistress of a school there [Methodist Mission Girls’ School] who was also named Sophia. The final verdict now is that it was named after Raffles’s second wife, Sophia Hull. Mount Sophia is also called the Second Governor’s Hill. His first residence is at Fort Canning Hill. You see the whole thing is hard to detect.
Jimmy
Each one of these entries could be a book by itself.
Victor
And then sometimes we get it wrong, and someone tells us, and we correct it.
Jimmy
What was the impetus for the fourth edition?
Victor
I just felt there was a need to have a fourth edition because many people wanted their contributions in it. One of my students is an advisor to the Kim Mui Hoey Kuan [Kinmen association]. The association has certain roads named after their members. They’re not given enough recognition, and the association wants to set the record straight.
Jimmy
Which entries are those?
Victor
Quemoy Road. And those on the Kinmenese [Kim Chin Street and How Sun Avenue]. Also, my doctor, Professor Raymond Seet, is very interested in this thing. He told me that his great-great-grandfather was a very rich guy who had a lot to do with Tiong Bahru. But unfortunately, the road named after him was eradicated because they built a market there on the road. But all the other roads around it were named after his children, and they are all still there in Tiong Bahru. Then a Dutch guy, Asmund Tielens, emailed me about Asimont Lane. He said that our book had that entry wrong. The road was named after his family, Asmund, but the name was spelt wrongly. And we could never have corrected that if he didn’t come forward.
Jimmy
Because you wouldn’t have known. There are all these reasons you want to update it. How much longer is the fourth edition?
Victor
100 pages. More entries, more corrections, more clarification. And after the fourth edition came out, my friends and colleagues told me I didn’t put their road names in. So, I said okay, a fifth edition.
Jimmy
How long did it take to put together the fourth edition?
Victor
Over a year. It was painstaking.
Jimmy
What were the main challenges?
Victor
Well, you go through every entry, and then you slowly correct them. It’s very tedious. It’s a back-breaking exercise. And you have to be patient and systematic. It’s not like writing a political analysis, where you’re at liberty to flog your ideas. Sometimes two people claim one road name, and we can’t solve the problem.
This French guy by the name of Jean Claude Fuchs, who lives in Normandy and has a Singaporean wife, was very fascinated with Farquhar, because Farquhar had a mistress, a Eurasian woman from Malacca with French ancestry. So, he would bug me about Farquhar. There is no road named after him. People get so worked up. It’s not that Farquhar is French, but this guy is French and Farquhar’s mistress had French ancestry, so a road must be named after Farquhar.
Jimmy
Farquhar is obviously very important. Yet we see so many places named after Raffles.
Victor
This guy brought it all the way up to Goh Chok Tong. As a compromise, the government decided to name the Farquhar Terrace at Fort Canning.
Jimmy
It’s not quite a road.
Victor
Not a road. It’s not even known. I’ve asked people, and they don’t know. The issue about Farquhar came into perspective, because Nadia Wright wrote a book William Farquhar and Singapore: Stepping out from Raffles’ Shadow.
And she wrote that Farquhar is the most underrepresented in Singapore history and he did a lot for the colony. It’s difficult to take away the shine from Raffles and replace him with Farquhar. Actually, the guy undermining Raffles and Farquhar was [John] Crawfurd. Crawfurd was very jealous of Raffles. He made snide remarks.
Jimmy
Are there any interesting anecdotes on the new entries?
Victor
One of the things I find with road naming during Singapore’s post-independent phase was that it was very controversial. The irony is that the first-generation leaders are not at all represented in roads. There is no Lee Kuan Yew Road, no Goh Keng Swee Road, no Barker Road, no Hon Sui Sen Road, no Goh Keng Swee Road, no Othman Wok Road. No presidents are named in roads; no Devan Nair Road or Benjamin Sheares Road. There’s Benjamin Sheares Bridge. No Wee Kim Wee Road and all that. What they have are institutions and buildings, but no roads. I was in the road naming committee for a very short while. I was booted out. I don’t care where anyone was from. I spoke very frankly.
Jimmy
What happened when you were on the road naming committee?
Victor
I don’t know whether this is confidential. The committee was concerned about two things. How do we name roads that would convey some sort of political significance? We had a ranking system: trunk roads would be named after the highest political authority. The name “Lee Kuan Yew” would be for a highway. You can’t have a trunk road named after a minor character, and a major personality in the housing estate. The second thing we deliberated on was that the roads named during the colonial era had too many political personalities. And we thought that we should extend the road names to include Singaporeans who excelled in sports, arts, theatre, music, dance, whatever it is. Why can’t we have a Tan Howe Liang Road?
Jimmy
That would be nice.
Victor
We talked about Changi Airport being named after Lee Kuan Yew, just like the Kennedy airport. We can have the LKY Airport. All these suggestions were there, but nothing never took off. I don’t know whether the minister or whoever was too nervous to bring up these things.
There’s one more reason for the book: Petain Road. There’s a French guy who owns a gallery. He was very upset that there was a road named after Philippe Petain [head of the collaborationist regime of Vichy France during the Second World War]. He got hold of the residents of Petain Road. And 14 of them wanted to have the road name changed. I don’t know how they got me into the picture. They said my name carries more weight when I write to the minister. So, I was the guy who wrote the petition with all their inputs.
Jimmy
When was this?
Victor
About two, three years ago. I wrote to the minister in charge at that time, Grace Foo. The research showed that all roads named after Petain throughout the world were all eradicated – except Singapore – because he was a traitor, a collaborator with the Nazi Germans. He collaborated with a regime that killed many Jews.
Jimmy
It’s a compelling reason.
Victor
I wrote twice to the minister on Petain Road, and nothing has happened. There is a precedence for changing road names. It’s recorded in the Hansard. We weren’t disrupting anything. There’s no need for a new road name. We can just extend another road to cover Petain Road.
Jimmy
Very clever. It can be very political.
Victor
Very political. We got all the 14 residents to sign that they are willing to change the road name.
Jimmy
Was this in the papers? I seem to remember reading about it.
Victor
It was in the papers because Professor Tommy Koh wrote about it. We asked him to write a blurb for the book, although the publisher said no need to, because the book sells itself.
Jimmy
Can you tell us something interesting about one or two new entries in the fourth edition?
Victor
The one road we had great difficulty with is Holland Village. We’ve not settled that issue. It’s funny we can’t pinpoint how such an iconic place got its name. It got its name quite long ago. But we can’t connect the dots. The other one is Chip Bee Gardens, near Holland Village.
Jimmy
So we don’t know who Chip Bee is? It sounds like the name of a shop.
Victor
Holland Village was a swamp area. Then it got rejuvenated because of the British military down the road at Buona Vista. Then the British government built terrace houses at Chip Bee for the military commissioned officers. The other place name we don’t know about is Kovan. When you’re dealing with place names, you need to find a connection that is plausible. Not just hearsay.
We’ve dealt with other issues, like red light districts [such as Desker Road]. I interviewed Barry Desker. He said that that they are a Portuguese-Malacca family, and their name was not Desker. It was originally Desquer. When his great-grandfather came to Singapore, because Singapore is a British colony, he anglicised the name from Desquer to Desker.
And then there is Xilin Avenue. Xilin is a hanyu pinyin name for Sek Lim, a Chinese man. I interviewed his grandchildren. He had a huge piece of land from Changi all the way to Bedok. The grandchildren said that their grandfather had seven wives. And he had built houses for all seven: four on one side of the Bedok river and three on the other side. The grandfather was very strict, and they were very scared of him. Yet his inheritance didn’t go to his children, but to the grandchildren.
Jimmy
That’s very interesting. Apart from library research, you also conducted oral history interviews.
Victor
I interviewed different people. I interviewed the Somapah family. They said that Hunmah Somapah (1870–1919) was already rich when he came to Singapore. It was initially thought that Somapah was an Indian convict [who was] brought to Singapore and made it rich here, and then a road was named after him. So there are all these issues to sort out. People have different interpretations of their family history.
Jimmy
How about heritage buffs on the Internet? Did that change how you put the book together?
Victor
There are many bloggers, and these people have a lot of information. But there are some sections unexplored. For example, how did Middle Road get its name? There’s no record of it. My view is that on the north side of the Singapore River, where European town was, Europeans had residence from the Singapore River to Bras Basah. Then from Bras Basah to Middle Road was the Eurasian community.
Jimmy
They went to the Portuguese Church.
Victor
The churches and schools were there. On one side of Middle Road near Mount Sophia was the Jewish community. Bencoolen Street was the Malay community, because Malays from Bencoolen, Sumatra went there. We go down Middle Road, where there’s a big Japanese community. Further down at Beach Road is the Hainanese community. Middle Street is very interesting. Different ethnic groups are all parked in different areas. But then again, how do we get the word “middle”? One theory is that it’s middle between Singapore River and Kampong Glam.
Jimmy
What are your plans? Your book Lion City Narratives was published in 2021.
Victor
That’s about Western impressions in Singapore from 1819 to 1963. The new book is from 1963 to the present. The tentative title is The Green Dot: Singapore’s Audacious Narrative. [It’s about how] Singaporeans view Singapore. All the politicians and all that.
Jimmy
Sounds a very big book. And then you also have another book on nature?
Victor
That will be 2024 or 2025. [That’s on how] Southeast Asia views nature.
Jimmy
What have you been doing since you retired? Have you been writing books?
Victor
Yes. I retired in 2016. I was Director of Alumni Relations at NUS [National University of Singapore]. It was a very big portfolio, looking after 260,000 alumni, including Lee Kuan Yew.
Jimmy
Via Raffles College.
Victor
Yes, Raffles College. That’s why I know a lot of people because I organised a lot of functions. After I left NUS, I was employed by RSIS [S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies] as a fellow.
Jimmy
Are you going to write your memoirs?
Victor
Well, I’ve started. I’ve written a whole section on my relationship with Lee Kuan Yew. Not a personal relationship, but at different periods of my life, there were incidences.
Place names tell us much about a country — its history, its landscape, its people, its aspirations, its self-image. The study of place names unlocks the stories that are in every street name and landmark. This revised and expanded 4th edition of the book incorporates additional information, from archival research as well as interviews, that have come to light since the last edition.The book can be found in bookshops around Singapore. It is also available at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library and selected public libraries (call no. 915.9570014 SAV) and on NLB OverDrive as an ebook.