Grave Matters: Spatial-temporal Analyses of Bukit Brown and Seh Ong Cemeteries

Background to the Bukit Brown and Seh Ong Cemeteries

The Seh Ong Cemetery was established by the prominent Ong clansmen Ong Kew Ho, Ong Ewe Hai and Ong Chong Chew when, in 1872, they bought 211 acres of land from Lim Chor Ghee and Mootapa Chitty for $1,500. The land was to be used for the residential, agricultural and burial purposes of their Ong clansmen from Fujian.

The origins of Bukit Brown Cemetery can be traced back to 1906, when Dr Lim Boon Keng first mooted the idea of a Chinese municipal cemetery to the Municipal Council. At that time, Chinese in Singapore were buried in private family plots or clan association burial grounds, which were becoming overcrowded. Although the Municipal Council passed the motion unanimously, the process of finding land for the new cemetery was long drawn out, and it was only in 1918 that the municipal government began to look for suitable burial grounds in the Bukit Brown area. In Nov and Dec 1919, the municipal government acquired four lots of land for this purpose – Lots 33, 3801, 3805 and 99303 – the last of which (98 acres) belonged to the Ong clansmen and served as part of the Seh Ong Cemetery. This is why both cemeteries are adjacent to each other.

Subsequently, Bukit Brown Cemetery was opened in 1922. Although the initial response was lukewarm – only 93 burials took place in its first year of operation – the cemetery became increasingly popular and was fully populated by 1944 during the Japanese Occupation. Thereafter, only those with reserved plots could be buried in Bukit Brown Cemetery, which was finally officially closed to burials in 1973 (Hui 2019: 170-171).

Different Organization and Burial Patterns of the Cemeteries

Seh Ong Cemetery was divided into five sections or hills. Based on our spatial-temporal data of the graves in Hill 1 and Hill 3, they were sporadically populated over time, with no uniformity to the size or facing direction of graves. This accords with patterns usually found in conventional clan association cemeteries, where larger, choice plots on higher elevations were acquired or reserved by the rich Chinese elite. Moreover, the facing direction of graves was determined by fengshui (geomancy) considerations, with implications for the fortunes of descendants, and so differed from grave to grave.

In contrast, the grave plots and facing direction of graves in Bukit Brown Cemetery were standardized, as required by the municipal government. Moreover, the five Blocks of the cemetery, drawn out after the land was acquired and before the cemetery was opened, were populated sequentially from Blocks 1 to 5. Based on data gleaned from the Bukit Brown Burial Register, the first burials in the respective blocks are as follows:

Block 1 - Apr 1922

Block 2 - Jan 1924

Block 3 - Sep 1928
Block 4 - Oct 1934 (Pauper); Nov 1935 (General)
Block 5 - Apr 1940

These differing organization and burial patterns in the two adjacent cemeteries are apparent when we map out the graves and their facing directions (Figure 1). Graves in the Seh Ong Cemetery are concentrated on lower elevations near the road while those on higher elevations are sparser. There is also no standard facing direction for the graves. In Bukit Brown Cemetery, graves are neatly spaced out following a grid-like format, and the facing direction is standardized for each block and division.

Distribution of Graves Affected by Road Works

The announcement of plans to construct an eight-lane carriageway cutting through both cemeteries in 2011 would necessitate the exhumation of about 3,700 graves, in Blocks 1 to 5 of Bukit Brown Cemetery and mainly Hills 1 and 3 of Seh Ong Cemetery (see Figure 2 below). The documentation of these graves in the aforementioned Bukit Brown Documentation Project meant that data is available from all blocks of Bukit Brown Cemetery. Although not a statistically representative sample, it does mean that we have data from all periods of the cemetery’s occupation history for spatial-temporal analysis.

Figure 2: Distribution of affected graves across Bukit Brown and Seh Ong cemeteries

Distribution of the Earliest Qing Dynasty Graves

Visitors to Bukit Brown and Seh Ong cemeteries would have noticed the presence of headstones dating back to the Qing dynasty. These may be recognized by the words huang qing (皇清, a reference to the Qing Dynasty) inscribed on the headstones, as well as dates that reference the reigns of the different Qing dynasty emperors. Since Bukit Brown Cemetery was opened in 1922, after the end of the Qing dynasty following the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, we may assume that these graves found in Bukit Brown Cemetery were relocated from other cemeteries. Conversely for Seh Ong Cemetery, since the land was acquired in 1872, it is highly likely that graves dating back to the reigns of Guangxu Emperor (1875-1908) and Xuantong Emperor (1908-1911) represent original burials in the cemetery.

Table 1 below summarizes the distribution of 282 Qing dynasty graves that we have records of. The majority (176 graves) are found in Hills 1 and 3 of Seh Ong Cemetery, while 106 graves are found in Blocks 2-5 of Bukit Brown Cemetery. Of these, an overwhelming majority of the graves date back to the reign of the Guangxu Emperor (195 graves).

Table 1: Distribution of Qing dynasty graves by time period and location

Figure 3 below shows the distribution of Qing dynasty graves in the two cemeteries. It can be seen that Qing dynasty graves in Seh Ong Cemetery are mainly Guangxu era graves clustered on the lower elevations of Hill 3 near the road. For Bukit Brown Cemetery, we observe major clusters of graves in Blocks 2 and 3, and it is likely that they were relocated collectively from the same cemeteries. Other Qing dynasty graves distributed sporadically across Blocks 2-5 are more likely to have been relocated individually from private cemeteries.

Figure 3: Distribution of Qing dynasty graves across Bukit Brown and Seh Ong cemeteries

Populating Bukit Brown Cemetery

Table 2 shows how the different Blocks of Bukit Brown Cemetery were occupied over five-year periods since its opening in 1922. As we only have data of graves in the affected area, the sample is not statistically representative, and very likely under-represents graves from the 1932-1936 period.

Nevertheless, the historical sequential pattern through which the cemetery was occupied, as shown by the data, accords with what is found in the burial register. Burials peaked during the Japanese Occupation (matching the 1942-1946 period in Table 2 below). Thereafter, burials took a significant dip as only those with reserved plots could be buried in the cemetery.

Table 2: Distribution of graves in Bukit Brown Cemetery by time period and location

When we look at Figure 4, which shows the occupation of the different blocks of the cemetery over different time periods, the spatial pattern of burials during the Japanese Occupation (largely marked by the blue dots representing the 1942-1946 period) is revealing. In all the blocks, we find rows of blue dots running through neatly arranged graves of earlier time periods. This is likely the result of graves occupying what would have been pathways in the different blocks due to the lack of burial space in the cemetery. The same reason could account for the congested pattern of burial on the fringes of Blocks 2, 3 and 5 during the same time period. Thus, through a GIS mapping of the graves over time, we begin to see how the surge of burials during the Japanese Occupation disrupted the spatial organization of the cemetery, which in turn is symptomatic of the exceptional times.

Figure 4: Occupation of Bukit Brown Cemetery over different time periods

Next Steps for Cemetery Studies

This article is based on preliminary findings of a project that seeks to analyze a rich set of data from the Bukit Brown and Seh Ong cemeteries through a GIS framework. With the collection of GPS coordinates, GIS enables micro-geographic analysis that unveils unique and non-random spatial patterns otherwise invisible to conventional analysis. By matching spatial patterns that we observe with the dates of the graves and cultural history of the cemeteries, we begin to unearth patterns that might have been buried with the passage of time. Future work will bring the material culture and features of the graves into the analysis, further enriching cemetery studies.

This project was supported by the National Heritage Board's Heritage Research Grant.