| Pearl's Hill | |
|---|---|
  Pearl's Hill Location in Singapore | |
| Highest point | |
| Elevation | 147.638 feet (45.000 m) |
| Coordinates | 1°17′04″N103°50′21″E / 1.28444°N 103.83917°E |
| Geography | |
| Location | Singapore |
| Geology | |
| Mountain type | hill |
Pearl's Hill, briefly Mount Stamford, is a small hill in Singapore. Located in the vicinity of Chinatown, it is one of the few surviving hills in the city area.
The hill was the location of gambier plantations owned by the Chinese who had occupied and settled there before Stamford Raffles' arrival in 1819. Captain James Pearl, the captain of ship Indiana which took Sir Stamford Raffles to Singapore in 1819, liked the look of the hill, and began acquiring plot after plot on the hill from the Chinese gambier planters until he owned the entire hill in May 1822. Pearl had the Chinese and Malay workmen built his house on top of the hill and cleared the slopes to plant pepper vines for him.
The hill was briefly named Mount Stamford by Pearl as a compliment to Raffles. When Raffles, having returned from Bencoolen, Sumatra in October 1822, heard how the hill had been acquired without his approval, he ordered its repossession by the British Government. Raffles immediately relented and accorded the ownership of the hill back to Pearl. Captain Pearl, disgruntled by Raffles' actions, renamed the hill after himself.
In 1828, Captain Pearl retired back to England and his agents had the hill sold to the British Government for Rs 10,000. His name had remained associated with the hill since then. [1] Pearl's Hill used to be higher than Fort Canning Hill, thus the British colonial engineers decided to have the coolies shave off the top of Pearl's Hill, therefore lowering its peak to ensure their enemies would not be able to use the hill as an attacking position against the newly built Fort Canning. [2]
Pearl's Hill is well known for once being the site of the former multiple notable institutional buildings such as the Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Seaman's hospital and the Pearl's Hill Prison. The Pearl's Hill Prison is located there because of the close proximity to Sepoy Lines as it was thought to provide protection and security for the prison.
Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles was a British colonial official who served as the governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816 and lieutenant-governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. Raffles was involved in the capture of the Indonesian island of Java from the Dutch during the Napoleonic Wars. It was returned under the Anglo–Dutch Treaty of 1814. He also wrote The History of Java in 1817, describing the history of the island from ancient times. The Rafflesia flower was named after him.
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Tan Tock Seng was a Malacca-born merchant and philanthropist from Singapore.
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Philip Jackson was a British Royal Navy lieutenant in the Bengal Regiment Artillery. Jackson has also served as assistant engineer, executive officer and surveyor of public lands in colonial Singapore and laid out the city plan for Singapore in 1822. He was a key person in Raffles plans for the settlement and the Elgin Bridge in Singapore was once named in his honour.
Sang Nila Utama was a prince from Palembang and is the founder of the Kingdom of Singapura in 1299. His official title adopted upon his coronation was Sri Tri Buana, which can be translated as "Lord of Three Worlds"; the "Three Worlds" may refer to the three realms of the universe—the heaven of the gods, the world of humans, and the underworld of demons or his lordship over Java, Sumatra and Temasek/Singapura. This title is attested to elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
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Raffles House is a single-storey building built on the Fort Canning Hill, Singapore. The original building was a wood and atap structure built in 1822 that was used as a place of residence by Sir Stamford Raffles. This building was later rebuilt as a neoclassical-styled Government House as the residence of subsequent colonial governors, but it was demolished in 1858 to make way for the construction Fort Canning. The present structure built on the same site is a brick and tile building constructed in 2003.
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