View of Ellenborough Market

Title

Year/Period

c. 1860

Region

Singapore

Object Type

positives (photographs), photographic prints

Material

photographic paper, ink

Technique

photographic processes, photographic printing techniques

Dimension

Image size: 14.9 x 22.6 cm

Accession No.

1994-04831

Collection of

National Museum of Singapore

Across the Singapore River from Fort Canning stands the first Ellenborough Market seen in this photograph, built in 1845 by Captain Charles Edward Faber. The construction of this public market, named after the Governor-General of India, Lord Ellenborough, was deemed unsatisfactory. So an entire cast-iron structure was purchased from Edinburgh, shipped to Singapore and reconstructed next to the original market in 1899.In 1845, Tan Tock Seng, a wealthy Hokkien Chinese merchant, began preparations for the construction of the Ellenborough Buildings beside the market. An elegant triangular block of two-storey shophouses, it was designed by John Turnbull Thomson, Government Surveyor for the Straits Settlements, in the 1840s.