Telegraph.co.uk, UK
Aug 18 2004
Singapore’s dead make way for the living
By Sebastien Berger in Singapore
(Filed: 18/08/2004)
One of Singapore’s biggest graveyards, the final resting place of
much of the island’s Christian population for most of the 20th
century, is in the final stages of being emptied.
Every day about 60 graves in the Bidadari Christian Cemetery, a green
lung popular with joggers a couple of miles north of the island’s
thriving city centre, are emptied.
Out of more than 50,000 burials, from 1907 to 1972, the relatives of
fewer than 10,000 came forward to claim their remains. They were
dealt with first, and the rest were left to the care of the Singapore
authorities.
About 3,000 are left. One of them is Lt Col T L Fox OBE, whose simple
headstone records that he died in Singapore on Aug 2, 1954, aged 60,
without mentioning relatives or regiment. A glance at the grave told
the exhumation workers that it had yet to be emptied, which meant the
remains were unclaimed.
With the work due to finish by the end of the year, one morning in
the next four months they will break open the thin concrete cover of
the tomb, dig down to the coffin, and bring it out.
Col Fox’s headstone will be destroyed. As with all the unclaimed
remains, his will be cremated later the same day and his ashes put
into storage.
If no one comes forward to ask for them in three years from the end
of the work they, along with those of tens of thousands of other
people, will be scattered at sea.
The cemetery is being emptied of the dead to make room for the
living.
Land is in huge demand in Singapore. It has an area of 263 square
miles, less than half the size of Greater London but, because of
reclamation projects, is 40 square miles bigger than it was at
independence in 1965, making it, in physical percentage terms, one of
the fastest-growing countries in the world.
The Bidadari cemetery complex, which also includes an already-exhumed
Muslim site and Hindu and Sinhalese Buddhist graveyards where work is
due to start next year, will provide 140 acres of land for flats.
Singapore’s Housing and Development Board, which is in charge of the
project, was unable to say how many people would benefit. The work,
however, comes at a historical cost.
In addition to thousands of Chinese Christians, the cemetery was the
final resting place of many of the traders, administrators, priests,
doctors and others, of all denominations, who made up Singapore’s
colonial community.
Among them was Augustus Podmore Williams, (May 22, 1852-April 17,
1916), who is believed to be the model for the title character in
Conrad’s Lord Jim.
Born in Porthleven, Cornwall, in July 1880 he was first mate on a
pilgrim ship, the Jeddah, when the boilers began to leak and the
captain and officers abandoned the vessel, leaving the Muslim
travellers on board to their fate.
The group was picked up and taken to Aden, where they reported that
their ship had sunk, only for it to be towed into port the following
day. Williams was severely censured by a court of inquiry, but later
established himself in the shipping business in Singapore. His
remains have been claimed by his descendants.
Members of the Armenian Sarkies family, who founded the Raffles
Hotel, were buried at Bidadari, as were several of those who died at
the Changi internment camp during the Second World War Japanese
occupation of Singapore.
Sue Williams (no relation to Augustine), a Briton who has written a
chapter on Bidadari for a forthcoming book on the cemeteries of
Singapore, said: “It was such a beautiful place. But it was obvious
that it would have to go because it is a vast stretch of land.”