As is the case with most urban planning, functionality was a main concern when drawing up urban plans for colonial Singapore and Malaya. Functionality, however, was not the only concern. Swettenham’s British Malaya: An Account of the Origin and Progress of British in Malaya (1907) and Pearson’s analysis of Jackson’s Plan both show the main priorities when planning how to construct and organise colonial settlements. Particularly in the cases of Singapore and Malaya, British authorities used urban planning as a means of reorganising colonial space to maximise economic productivity and/or administrative control. Even if plans were not successfully realised, the designs reveal British ambition and intentions which go further than simply functionality in urban planning.

Sir Frank Swettenham’s British Malaya: An Account of the Origin and Progress of British in Malaya (1907) is particularly revealing of the way in which the British used urban planning for the purpose of advancing economic priorities. Frank Swettenham, author of the aforementioned source, was a former Governor of the Straits Settlements, as well as the High Commissioner for the Federated Malay States. In British Malaya: An Account of the Origin and Progress of British in Malaya (1907), Swettenham writes from an insider perspective of his experiences within the colonial administration. Swettenham’s ideas surrounding economic growth being at the centre of urban planning became abundantly clear during his discussion of road construction in the Malay States. Swettenham describes roads in an interesting fashion. Instead of focusing on their practical purpose, getting people from one settlement to another, Swettenham instead describes the infrastructure as follows: “A bridle road was no sooner completed than small houses, plantations, and fruit and vegetable gardens sprang up along its whole length.”¹ He writes that as the roads were improved upon, the villages were developing simultaneously. This means that roads, in the urban planning process, managed to alter the spatial organisation of the landscape by encouraging economic activities to be concentrated alongside them, a premeditated effort established by the colonial administration. This illustrates how space was seized as an opportunity to plan for the best economic outcome.

This is not the extent of economic growth as a main priority in the urban planning of Malaya. Swettenham additionally writes that, “revenue and prosperity follow the liberal but prudently-direct expenditure of public funds”² especially when money is invested in “high-class roads, in railways, telegraphs, waterworks, and everything likely to encourage trade and private enterprise.”³ Here, Swettenham is stating that infrastructure is important because it increases land values, encourages private investment, and facilitates commerce, which ultimately benefits the government and its revenue. Swettenham is using urban planning by analysing the physical organisation of the settlement and connecting it to the networks of trade and private enterprise to best enhance productivity. The economic growth provided by the settlement, by proxy, benefits the administration that oversees it, once again proving economic growth and administrative interest are at the heart of urban planning in colonial Malaya.

Swettenham’s account, however, also reveals specific administrative efforts made within the colonial settlements whilst urban planning. Swettenham writes, “Sanitary Boards were instituted to regulate the markets, sanitation, slaughter-houses, laundries, water supply,”⁴ as well as various other aspects. The introduction of “Sanitary Boards” meant a new opportunity for colonial authorities to exercise power over civilians. Swettenham’s account also lays out other administrative positions that each coincide with a different location in the settlement, writing, “his main supports were the officer in charge of districts, originally styled District Magistrates.”⁵ This means that in urban planning, each district was assigned an officer to oversee it, showing how administrative efforts were implanted into the design of the city itself. In other words, with each district comes a specific administrative force to govern it. Swettenham’s account once again proves administrative control was at the forefront of urban planning, as the city was specifically planned for positions that coincided with certain districts.

Outside of Malaya, urban planning in colonial Singapore was orchestrated around optimisation for greater administrative gain. In H.F. Pearson’s analysis of Jackson’s Plan, the text shows British colonial powers using urban planning to implement administrative control over the settlement, though in this instance it was not exactly successful. However, the intent was always evident. The intent is especially evident in Pearson’s analysis of Jackson’s Plan, which demonstrates the ambitions of colonial planners for Singapore. Pearson cites a contemporary description of the plan: “The general plan of the town, showing the allotment of the different campongs, principal roads and streets, and the ground reserved for public purposes,”⁶ which shows an initial effort to make Singapore spatially ordered and, ultimately, more administratively manageable. Jackson’s Plan also included “well-regulated roads and kampongs planned according to Raffles’s instructions.”⁷ The language here of “well-regulated” and “planned according to Raffles’s instructions” yet again reinforces that colonial officials wanted Singapore’s physical organisation to reflect British administrative decisions.

The cases of colonial Singapore and Malaya both go to show that urban planning was not merely about creating a functional colonial settlement. Rather, urban planning was used to create a spatial organisation of a colonial settlement that was best equipped to be governable and easily regulated administratively as well as being economically efficient. The pieces of Swettenham and Pearson allow us to understand what intentions are behind the planning of a colonial city and how those intentions become realised in the actual city itself.

1. Frank Swettenham, British Malaya: An Account of the Origin and Progress of British Influence in Malaya (London: John Lane, 1907), 238–39. [↩]
2. Swettenham, British Malaya, 294. [↩]
3. Swettenham, British Malaya, 295. [↩]
4. Swettenham, British Malaya, 239. [↩]
5. Swettenham, British Malaya, 242. [↩]
6. H. F. Pearson, “Lt. Jackson’s Plan of Singapore,” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of Royal Asiatic Society 42. no. 1 (1969): 163, quoting Singapore Consultations, 7 February 1823. [↩]
7. Pearson, “Lt. Jackson’s Plan of Singapore,” 164. [↩]