Patrick Comerford
CHIJMES (pronounced ‘chimes’) is a former church building complex in Singapore that is part of the legacy of the Irish-born architect George Drumgoole Coleman (1795-1844) from Drogheda.
The complex, which I visited during our recent stopover to Singapore, takes its name from the initials of the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus. It is architecturally distinctiveas a self-contained block in the city centre at Victoria Street, with groups of buildings incorporating diverse styles and different periods of architecture clustered around courtyards. The chapel was once one of the most elaborate places of worship ever built in Singapore.
The buildings include a chapel, schools and accommodation, and they were used for church school activities until November 1983, when the school moved to new premises. The complex was restored in 1996 as a commercial, dining, shopping and entertainment centre with restaurants, shops and a function hall, and providing a venue for musicals, recitals, theatrical performances and weddings.
Caldwell House, now a wedding venue, and the Gothic-style chapel, now known as CHIJMES Hall, are used as a function hall and a wedding venue, and both are designated national monuments.
The first building on the site was Caldwell House, designed by Coleman and built in 1840-1841. The complex was home to a Catholic convent from 1852, and included a convent orphanage house (1855), the convent chapel (1904) and a former hotel complex and girls’ school (1933).
The story of the convent, its chapel and the nuns goes back to Father Jean-Marie Beurel, a French missionary priest in Singapore. After building the earlier version of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd in 1847, he wanted to open a boys’ school, rum by the Brothers of the Christian Schools.
Beurel asked the Straits Settlements government in 1848 for land for a school, but was refused. He left Singapore on 28 October 1850 for France, where he approached Mother François de Sales de Faudoas, Superior General of the Infant Jesus Sisters, to send some sisters to Singapore to start a girls’ school. He returned to Singapore in 1852 with some brothers from the Brothers of the Christian Schools, and they founded Saint Joseph’s Institution at the former chapel in May 1852.
In July, Beurel once again asked the Straits Settlements Government for land beside the church for a charitable institution for girls, only to be told the Church already had sufficient land. A month later, in August, Beurel bought Caldwell House at the corner of Victoria Street from HC Caldwell for the Sisters of the Holy Infant Jesus.
Mother Mathilde Raclot and three other Sisters of the Holy Infant Jesus travelled overland from France and arrived in Penang in October. Mother Mathilde would become a key figure in the early history of the convent on Victoria Street. The French sisters sailed to Singapore from Penang in February 1854 and moved into Caldwell House on 5 February 1854. Ten days after moving in, they began taking in pupils, establishing the first CHIJ school in Singapore.
Over a period of 20 years, Mother Mathilde turned the convent into a school. A house at the corner of the Stamford Road and North Bridge Road was bought in 1855 to serve as an orphanage and refuge, known as Home for Abandoned Babies, taking in local girls and women and sometimes boys.
Meanwhile, Beurel had bought nine lots of land between Victoria Street and North Bridge Road, originally belonging to the Raffles Institution, that came to constitute the entire convent complex, and handed them over to Mother Mathilde.
The first convent chapel was built in 1855. But it fell into such a bad condition that it became necessary to build a new one. In the intervening period, Mass was celebrated for the sisters in Caldwell House.
Father Charles Benedict Nain, a priest at the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, became the architect for building the new convent chapel. At the same time, he was in charge of building the extension of Saint Joseph’s Institution. Work on building the convent chapel began in 1901. The architectural practice of Swan and Maclaren oversaw the project, the new chapel was completed by 1903, and it was consecrated on 11 June 1904.
The early Gothic Revival Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus Chapel retains finely detailed works, including the plasterwork, frescoes and stained glass panels. The chapel was one of the most elaborate places of worship ever built in Singapore. The stained-glass windows were designed by Jules Dobbelaere and were imported from Bruges. A five-storey spire flanked by flying buttresses marks the entrance to the chapel. The 648 capitals on the columns of the chapel and its corridors each bear a unique impression of tropical flora and birds.
Saint Nicholas Girls’ School was established on 16 January 1933, with classes in four bungalows that were once part of the Hotel van Wijk from the 1890s.
Four Japanese bombs hit the complex during the Battle of Singapore on 15 February 1942. During the Japanese occupation of Singapore, about 40 sisters, along with teachers and orphans and teachers were deported to a camp in Bahau, Negeri Sembilan, Malaya. Many of them died there from the harsh conditions. Under Japanese occupation, the school reopened as the Victoria Street Girls’ School. The remaining sisters were forced to wear armbands to show they were not British, and had to learn Japanese to teach a Japanese curriculum to pupils who were forced to learn Japanese songs and watch Japanese films.
Following the Japanese surrender in 1945, the school resumed its former name. The bungalows were demolished in 1950, and new three-storey blocks designed by Swan and Maclaren were built in 1951. The school was separated into primary and secondary sections in 1964.
One of the best-known sites at the convent was a small gate known as ‘The Gate of Hope’, at the corner of Victoria Street and Bras Basah Road. Many babies were abandoned there, especially girls born in the ‘Year of the Tiger,’ because of the superstition that they would bring bad luck to their families. The sisters adopted the babies and gave them a home in the Home for Abandoned Babies.
The original gate and orphanage were destroyed during the Battle of Singapore and were rebuilt after World War II.
The Singapore Government acquired the land from the convent in 1983 and the schools moved to a new site in Toa Payoh. The last service in the chapel was on 3 November 1983; the chapel was then deconsecrated and the convent was closed. Part of the former schools was demolished in 1984 with one of its remaining block was incorporated in part of the SMRT Headquarters Building later built on the site.
The site was put for sale by the Urban Redevelopment Authority in 1990 and Caldwell House and the former Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus Chapel were designated as national monuments later that year.
The complex underwent extensive restoration works in 1991, and much of the original structure of the convent has been preserved, so that Caldwell House, the chapel and the remaining school blocks were spared from demolition. In 1996, after almost 5½ years of conservation and construction work, the former Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus was converted into a plaza with shopping, food and beverage outlets, outdoor spaces and courtyards, cloistered walls and walkways.
CHIJMES received am award from UNESCO in 2002 and is now one of the major buildings in central Singapore. Caldwell House, built for HC Caldwell by Coleman in 1840-1841, and an example of his Neoclassical style, is the oldest building in the enclave.
Meanwhile, the site of Saint Joseph’s Institution, also established by Father Jean-Marie Beurel, was transformed into the Singapore Art Museum.
