The French Connection

This post is a follow up to my earlier article about the century old cemetery at Chestnut Drive.
I want to focus on the early pioneers living around Upper Bukit Timah area from where eventually my old village Princess Elizabeth Estate would be a part of.
In particular this is my tribute to Father Anatole Mauduit and Father Jean Marie Belliot, two giants who built the pioneering community around the area.

In the early days of Singapore, even before the Raffles founding of 1819, there were already Chinese immigrants working on gambier and pepper plantations on the island. Gambier was a plant that was used with the chewing of betel nuts and was also used for dyeing and tanning of leather.
It was the cash corp of its day.

A gambier plantation.
Gambier and pepper plants grew on the same vine and had a symbiotic nature.

This is an antique map of Singapore in 1852 showing areas of pepper and gambier plantations around the northern Upper Bukit Timah region.

Click on map for a detailed enlarged view.

The plantations were organised under a land tenure system called "kangchu"(  港主 ) in the Chinese Teochew dialect. Each kangchu (translated as 'river master') was led by a headman whose name gave rise to the area. The kangchu obtained his grant directly from the Temengong of Johor, which gave him the right to farm the river side lands.

In the above map you can see kangchus marked and named as Leem Chu Kang, Chu Chu Kang, Lau Chu Kang, Tan Chu Kang, Nam To Kang and Chan Chu Kang.
Some of these areas are still known by these names today like Yio Chu Kang, Choa Chu Kang and Lim Chu Kang. That was how the term 'chu kang' ( 厝港 ) meaning kangchu settlements came about.

While Raffles was a visionary who planned for the commercial success of the island, there was another group of men who had an equal vision for the betterment of the populace. These were the French missionaries from the society called Missions Etrangere De Paris or MEP.

Besides evangelisation, they reached out to the early settlers through building of churches and schools. Father Jean Beurel, who was head of the local mission then, built the Church of the Good Shepherd at Bras Basah, St Joseph's Institution, the Church of Ss Peter and Paul at Queen Street and the CHIJ Convent at Victoria Street.

He sent Father Anatole Mauduit to set up St Joseph Church at Kranji in 1846 where there were about a hundred Catholics working in the gambier plantations.
Initially, Father Mauduit, with the assistance of Fr Adolphe Issaly, started the church at Kranji at a village called Boko Kang but moved to the present location after Fr Beurel bought 30 acres of jungle land from the English East India Company. This new location was about 3 miles south from Kranji along Bukit Timah Road.

The title deed from the East India Co. for the purchase of the Bukit Timah land, 26 Aug 1851.

They built a church of wood on the hilltop, which was known locally known as Tek Ko Swa, with space reserved for a cemetery at the rear. (Tek Ko Swa is Teochew for bamboo hill). The church was completed in 1853.

The 1st St Joseph Church in Bukit Timah built by Fr. Mauduit and completed in 1853.
( Photo c.1901 - Source: Rev Fr Rene Challet MEP)

It was to this small wooden church (pictured above) that the famous explorer and naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, came to in 1854 to study the fauna and flora of the region. Alfred Russel Wallace was later to co-found the Theory of Evolution with Charles Darwin, based in part on the studies he made around Bukit Timah.

Father Mauduit died in 1858. For the next twenty years, the french MEP missionaries continued the work of ministering to the people in the rural northern regions. In 1878, came Father Jean-Marie Belliot, who was to stay on for the next 54 years at St Joseph.

In 1905, Father Belliot re-built the church, replacing the wooden building with a new paladin style church that would last till 1965.  Fr Mauduit and Fr Belliot both died in Singapore and were buried in the small cemetery behind the church that they built.

The church built by Father Belliot in 1905. ( Picture taken around 1960.)

Here is an extract from the book "The French in Singapore" by Maxim Pilon & Daniele Weiler. It tells of the hardships faced by the early missionaries in the tiger infested and Chinese gang controlled region of Bukit Timah.
"Life on the plantation was harsh: the workers were poor, and the dangers constant. An MEP report states: At Singapore, the Chinese Church is within the forest. The zeal of Father Mauduit had overcome all the obstacles and his little flock is increasing everyday. His catechumens are admirable, full of simplicity and fervour. They are poor, and their priest even poorer than them all; he considers himself lucky when he gets enough rice and plantains for his meals."

MEP missionaries who served at St Joseph Church

Dates indicate period at St Joseph Church Bukit Timah.
Anatole Mauduit, 1846-1858*

Adolphe MF Issaly**, (curate),1847 - 1853,
Ambrose Maistre, 1858-1860

Augustin Perie, 1860-62, 1868-1870
Adolf Issaly, 1864-1866 & in1871

Jean Pierre Remes, 1863-1864
Peter F Sorin, 1866-1868

JM Eugene Roussereau, 1870-1871

Elisee F Delouette, 1872 – 1876*

C J Saleilles, 1877-1881
Jean-Marie Belliot, 1878-1934*
L J Galmel, 1883-1885

Rene Challet, 1972-1977

Felix Brygier (curate), 1974-1982***

Louis Amiotte-Suchet, 1982-1986.

Other MEP Missionaries buried at St Joseph Church cemetery

Christopher Mazery *
Joseph Alibert*
Gustave Derenne *
Alexandre Blanchet *

Claude C Tisserrand *
Rene Girard*

*   Buried in the Cemetery at St Joseph Church Bukit Timah.

** Fr Issaly is buried at Church of Ss Peter & Paul,Queen Street.
*** Fr Felix Brygier is interred at the St Teresa Church, Kampong Bahru.

Related links: The cemetery at Chestnut Drive.
                       The Anti-catholic Riot of 1851
                       St Joseph Church Bukit Timah 1965
                       Alfred Russel Wallace
                       Photos of St Joseph parish cemetery

Places around P.E.E.(6) - The Cemetery at Chestnut Drive.

The St Joseph Church Cemetery. 1846 - 1984.

Few people know of this small cemetery at Chestnut Drive.
It was created in 1853 with the construction of St Joseph Church at Bukit Timah.

This cemetery is actually the second oldest Christian cemetery in Singapore, predated only by the Fort Canning Cemetery. It is much older than the former cemeteries at Bidadari and Kandang Kerbau.
Though still in existence today, it is no longer used for burials. It was closed in 1984 after nearly 140 years in use. It was estimated to have more than 400 burials there but no one knows for sure.

In fact, ever since Fort Canning Cemetery had been completely exhumed and is no longer a cemetery, this small burial ground at Chestnut Drive is now the oldest existing Christian cemetery in Singapore.

Forgotten graves at the old cemetery.

One reason it survived till now is that it is located on privately owned land. Another being that it was used solely for church members (i.e. for the parish community) and was not opened for public burials. Sadly, developments have been creeping up and it is probably only a matter of time before Singapore looses yet another heritage site.

The land was bought from the English East India Company by the Catholic Church in the 1840s.
This was still jungle territory at the time and the only road that led to the area ended at Bukit Timah Village (near today's Beauty World). To reach the church at Upper Bukit Timah meant trekking a further 5km through forested areas. These areas were being cleared at the time for gambier and pepper plantations. Among the plantation workers, there was a large number of Catholics who had migrated to Singapore to escape the persecutions in Indo-China.

The french Catholic priest who built St Joseph Church, Fr Anatole Mauduit, was a missionary from Indo-China, and was assigned to look after the growing Catholic community in the then tiger infested jungle area of Bukit Timah.

The first recorded burial at this cemetery took place on 7th November 1846. The grave is probably still there. The last burial was in 1984 under the tenure of Fr Simon Yim who was the parish priest at the time.

In my youth during the 1970s, I was a fervent parishioner at this church and used to visit the cemetery very often. I really liked the ambience of a small parish cemetery and even had a wish to be buried there at the end of my life! I guess that won't happen now that the cemetery is closed.
At that time, the church had employed a kebun (groundsman) whose duty partly included digging the burial graves and maintaining the cemetery where possible.

Yesterday, I visited the old cemetery. I was there to see the renovations that were done to St Joseph Church and decided to look at the graveyard where once my grandfather and uncle were buried.

St Joseph Church Bukit Timah, Aug 2012. After the renovations.

The cemetery today is in a very sad state of deterioration.
After its closure in 1984, many graves were exhumed for re-interring at columbariums. These included my grandfather and uncle's graves as well.
What is left are presumably those whose relatives are no longer around. These forgotten graves are starting to deteriorate and crumble. I noticed that even some of the graves near the entrance to the cemetery have been exhumed and the land turned into car parking spaces! It was quite sad to see that, i.e. losing our heritage in the name of progress.

A century old grave at the cemetery.

What saddened me most was something I saw while exploring through the graveyard.
It was the grave stone of Fr Anatole Mauduit hidden under some grass.
I was lamenting the fact that it was not being preserved or even looked after with better care.

I remembered that there was once a special monument made for him. This monument had his tomb, together with the tomb of another priest, Fr Belliot, who was a long serving parish priest from 1878 to 1934. This monument had also contained the remains of Archbishop Michael Olcomendy, the 1st Archbishop of Singapore and that of another missionary.

The remains of Archbishop Olcomendy were exhumed many years ago and re-interred at the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd at Bras Basah Road.
I suspect that during this exhumation, the other tombstones were removed and re-sited as the monument can no longer be found. Fr Mauduit's grave marker lies forgotten at the cemetery. I tried locating but couldn't find the tombstone of Fr Bellios.

The grave stone of Fr Anatolius Mauduit, 1st parish priest at St Joseph. He died in 1858.
Sadly, this monument is weathering badly in the open and was covered by overgrowth.

To see more pictures of the cemetery which I took during my visit, please visit my photo blog here.
Sadly, the pictures shows the deteriorating and neglected graves, some of which are more than 100 years old. Some of the tombstones of early missionaries are also badly strewn around.

I do hope if any parishioners of St Joseph Church reading this blog can bring this to the attention of their parish priest. It is really sad to see our heritage just going from dust to dust. It should be treated like a treasure found in the field, as Christians say. It should be preserved to ensure our continuing connection with the past.


Related links:  The French Connection
                        The Anti-Catholic Riot of 1851
                        St Joseph Church Bukit Timah