What Was Outram Before Outram? | Pearl’s Hill, Cemeteries, Prison and the Institutional Fringe Before the MRT Interchange

SINGAPORE / ESTATE HISTORY / OUTRAM

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By The Memory desk · Historical reference · Sources checked 7 October 2026

Before Outram was an MRT interchange and a hospital campus, it was military and institutional ground on the south-western edge of the colonial town. In 1827 the 35th Regiment of the Madras Native Infantry built its barracks here, which is why the area was long known as Sepoy Lines. Pearl’s Hill Prison followed in 1847, the General Hospital moved into the old barracks from 1873, and in 1858 the road through the district was renamed after the British general Sir James Outram.

So the Outram history is a story of institutions rather than villages: soldiers, prisoners, patients and police, and then, from 1970, thousands of public-housing residents. This guide follows those layers in order, sets out what the records actually date, and notes where they disagree. The shophouse quarter next door has its own page, what Chinatown was before Chinatown, and so does the 1930s estate to the west in our history of Tiong Bahru.

Outram at a glance

Location	South-west of the Singapore River, between Chinatown, Tiong Bahru and Tanjong Pagar; the Outram planning area covers about 136 hectares
Named after	Lieutenant-General Sir James Outram (1803–1863); Outram Road took the name in 1858
Earlier names	Cantonment Road for the road; Sepoy Lines for the barracks ground; Mount Stamford for Pearl’s Hill
Early institutions	Sepoy barracks (1827), Pearl’s Hill Prison (1847), the General Hospital at Sepoy Lines (from 1873; new building 1882), Pearl’s Hill Reservoir (1898–1904)
Known for	Outram Prison, the Outram Park flats, Singapore General Hospital and Pearl’s Hill
Today	A hospital campus, the Outram Park interchange on three MRT lines, Pearl’s Hill City Park and new housing such as One Pearl Bank

Why is it called Outram?

The road began as part of the route then called River Valley Road, and older records also call it Cantonment Road, after the ground Stamford Raffles told William Farquhar to set aside for the garrison’s quarters. In 1858 the Municipal Commission renamed several stretches of that road after British commanders of the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The stretch from Kim Seng Road to New Bridge Road became Outram Road, the stretch towards Upper Cross Street became Havelock Road, and Neil Road took a third name from the same campaign.

James Outram had no connection with Singapore. His name was imperial commemoration, chosen at a time when news of the Mutiny was fresh in every British settlement in Asia. It stuck because the road stuck, and the later housing estate, school and MRT station all borrowed it. Most people now know the name from the MRT map rather than from the general.

1822 to the 1860s: Pearl’s Hill and the sepoy lines

The district’s oldest landmark is the hill. In May 1822 Lieutenant James Pearl, captain and owner of the ship Indiana, began buying plots on it and called it Mount Stamford as a compliment to Raffles. His agents later sold the land back to the government, but his own name had already attached itself to the hill, and Pearl’s Hill is what it has been called ever since.

Five years later, in 1827, the 35th Regiment of the Madras Native Infantry built barracks at the foot of the hill. The Indian soldiers, or sepoys, gave the area the name Sepoy Lines, which survives in street names and in the Hokkien nickname for the hospital that later took over the site. The sepoys stayed until the 1860s, when the garrison moved to Tanglin Barracks and Fort Canning.

Pearl’s Hill also drew two of the colony’s early hospitals. The foundation stone of Tan Tock Seng Hospital was laid there on 25 July 1844 and the building was in use from 1849, while the Seamen’s Hospital nearby was completed in 1845. Both later moved away, but they set a pattern that held for more than a century: large public institutions on the slopes, the crowded shophouse town at their feet.

1847: from Pearl’s Hill Prison to Outram Prison

The prison followed. By the 1840s the Convict Gaol of 1841 was holding more than a thousand men, and in 1847 a new civil prison was built at Pearl’s Hill, designed by the government surveyor J. T. Thomson and built by Captain C. E. Faber. In 1882 a second institution, Her Majesty’s Service Criminal Jail, was built beside it, and the two were run together as Outram Prison.

For more than a century the prison walls were the district’s defining feature. During the Japanese Occupation most local civilians detained by the Japanese were held at Outram, while European prisoners of war were sent to Changi. Escapes were a recurring problem in the 1950s and 1960s, by which time the compound was hemmed in by the city. In 1966 Outram Prison was replaced by the new Queenstown Remand Prison, built for about $2 million.

The demolition date is less certain than it looks. One National Library article says the prison was pulled down in February 1966; another says the Housing and Development Board bought the site in 1966 for S$4.5 million and demolished the buildings in 1968. Both agree that the land went to public housing, and that the Outram Park Complex stood there by 1970.

1873 to 1981: the General Hospital at Sepoy Lines

Singapore’s first general hospital, in 1821, was a set of buildings in the cantonment near the river. Once the sepoys had left Sepoy Lines, the hospital was able to move into their former barracks, which it did from 1873, according to the National Heritage Board. A new hospital building was completed there in 1882, on higher ground chosen after cholera outbreaks at the earlier, low-lying site; the hospital’s own heritage page dates the move to that year. The Hokkien name See Pai Poh, still used for the hospital and the area, recalls the sepoy barracks.

The hospital’s modern history begins on 29 March 1926, when the Governor, Sir Laurence Guillemard, opened the Bowyer, Stanley and Norris blocks with 800 beds between them. The Bowyer Block, with its clock tower, still stands and is a national monument. On 12 September 1981 Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew opened a new hospital complex built for S$180 million, which forms the core of today’s campus.

The hospital grew partly over burial ground. Heng San Teng, the earliest Hokkien clan cemetery in Singapore, had been established by 1828 near today’s Silat Road and Jalan Bukit Merah by the Malacca-born merchant See Hoot Kee and other Hokkien leaders. According to the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, its graves were exhumed in the early 1940s to make room for the hospital’s expansion.

Pearl’s Hill: a reservoir, police barracks and a 38-storey landmark

As the prison and hospitals occupied the lower slopes, the summit was given a utility. Pearl’s Hill Reservoir, a high-service reservoir holding six million gallons, was begun in 1898 and completed in 1904, using the hill’s height to push piped water into Chinatown. It was a modern answer to the water carts remembered in the name of Kreta Ayer, the Chinatown street below.

The police arrived in force in the 20th century. The Upper Barracks was built in 1934 to house the Sikh Contingent of the Straits Settlements Police, and Pearl’s Hill Terrace later held the Police Operational Headquarters. After Singapore became a republic in 1965, the Ministry of Interior and Defence was also based here for a time.

In 1976 the hill acquired its most famous building. Pearl Bank Apartments, a 38-storey block designed by Tan Cheng Siong and Mok Yew Fun of Archurban Architects and Planners, was the tallest residential building in Singapore when it was completed. Its owners sold it collectively to CapitaLand in February 2018 for S$728 million, and it was replaced by One Pearl Bank, a 774-unit condominium.

1970 to 2003: the Outram Park flats

On the former prison site the state built the Outram Park Complex, a public-housing and shopping project opened by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in 1970. It was part of the urban-renewal drive that rehoused residents from overcrowded central shophouses, and it sat close enough to Chinatown to keep its people within walking distance of work and markets. A few hundred metres away, the same renewal programme produced the shopping-and-housing slab of People’s Park Complex, whose retail story we tell separately.

Outram Park did not last as long as the prison. In 1995 the Ministry of National Development announced that the estate was earmarked for redevelopment, and the complex was demolished in 2003. Another landmark had gone earlier: Outram Road School, opened on 26 February 1906, renamed Outram School in 1939 and converted to a secondary school in 1954, saw its old building demolished in late 1968.

Why did one district collect so many institutions? This is our reading rather than a documented policy: barracks, prisons, hospitals and reservoirs needed large plots and high ground within reach of the town. Outram offered both, and when the city grew past it, the hospital stayed while the prison moved out.

Outram Park MRT and the district today

Rail made the old institutional fringe a crossroads. Outram Park station opened on the East-West Line on 12 December 1987, the North East Line platforms followed on 20 June 2003, and the Thomson-East Coast Line platforms opened on 13 November 2022, making it one of the few stations served by three lines.

Above ground, the hospital campus is being remade. In February 2016 the government announced a 20-year master plan for the 43-hectare Singapore General Hospital campus, and EdgeProp reported in 2022 that Pearl’s Hill City Park was being upgraded with new play and social spaces. As of October 2026, the park, the Bowyer Block clock tower and the surviving police buildings on Pearl’s Hill Terrace are the easiest places to see the older Outram. Continue south along the old docks with our history of Tanjong Pagar, or west past the hospital to what Redhill was before Redhill.

An Outram history timeline

• May 1822: Lieutenant James Pearl begins buying land on the hill he calls Mount Stamford.
• 1827: The 35th Regiment of the Madras Native Infantry builds barracks at Sepoy Lines.
• 1847: Pearl’s Hill Prison is built, designed by J. T. Thomson.
• 1858: The road is renamed Outram Road after Sir James Outram.
• 1873: The General Hospital begins using the former barracks at Sepoy Lines.
• 1882: A new hospital building is completed; the Criminal Jail is built and the prisons are run together as Outram Prison.
• 1898 to 1904: Pearl’s Hill Reservoir is built.
• 29 March 1926: The Bowyer, Stanley and Norris blocks of the General Hospital open.
• 1966: Outram Prison is replaced by Queenstown Remand Prison; demolition is dated 1966 or 1968 depending on the source.
• 1970: The Outram Park Complex opens on the prison site.
• 1976: Pearl Bank Apartments is completed.
• 12 September 1981: The new Singapore General Hospital complex opens.
• 12 December 1987: Outram Park MRT station opens on the East-West Line.
• 2003: The North East Line platforms open on 20 June; the Outram Park Complex is demolished.
• 13 November 2022: The Thomson-East Coast Line reaches Outram Park.

Questions people ask

Why is it called Outram?

Outram Road was named in 1858 after Lieutenant-General Sir James Outram, a British commander in the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The housing estate, school and MRT station later took their names from the road.

What was Outram Prison?

Singapore’s main prison for more than a century. It began as Pearl’s Hill Prison in 1847, was joined by a criminal jail in 1882, and was replaced by Queenstown Remand Prison in 1966.

What replaced Outram Prison?

Public housing. The Outram Park Complex, a block of flats and shops, opened on the site in 1970 and was demolished in 2003.

Why is Singapore General Hospital called See Pai Poh?

The Hokkien name refers to Sepoy Lines, the barracks of Indian soldiers that stood on the site from 1827. The hospital moved into those buildings from 1873.

When did Outram Park MRT station open?

On 12 December 1987, on the East-West Line. The North East Line platforms opened on 20 June 2003 and the Thomson-East Coast Line platforms on 13 November 2022.

Sources and further reading

• National Library Board, Infopedia: Outram
• National Library Board, Infopedia: Outram Road
• National Library Board, Infopedia: Outram Prison
• National Library Board, Infopedia: Pearl’s Hill
• National Library Board, Infopedia: Singapore General Hospital
• National Heritage Board, Roots: The Outram Precinct (Tiong Bahru Heritage Trail)
• National Heritage Board, Roots: Upper Barracks
• National Heritage Board, Roots: Former Pearl Bank Apartments
• Singapore General Hospital: Our heritage
• Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, Culturepaedia: Hokkien clan cemeteries in Singapore
• EdgeProp: Outram area to benefit from third MRT connection (August 2022)

This is a historical reference; dates follow the sources listed, and where they disagree we say so. Read next: What was Chinatown before Chinatown · Tiong Bahru before the estate · Back to The Memory