Bt Brown pictures of Chia Hood Theam gravesite

This is my collection of pictures of Chia Hood Theam’s  gravesite at the Bt Brown cemetery in Singapore.

Born February 1863,  Died 10 July 1938

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The GPS location of Chia Hood Theam’s gravesite at Bt Brown at Blk1, grave number 314B  is

N 01 deg 20.182’    E 103 deg 49.343’    (or in metric, N1.33637 E103.82238)

elevation: 83m

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Map of Bt Brown

Chia Hood Theam, photo taken in late 1800s

Chia Hood Theam & Yeo Lan Neo

Chia Hood Theam family portrait Oct 1921

Chia Hood Theam grave

Chia Hood Theam & Yeo Lan Neo gravesite

Chia Hood Theam grave detail 01

Chia Hood Theam grave inscription in Chinese

Chinese inscription {bottom 5 characters “Xie Kong zhi Shou Yu”, meaning “Sir Chia’s domain of longevity”)

Chinese inscription (top 3 characters “Huang Qing Xian”}

In Loving Memory Chia Hood Theam

Born February 1863 Died 10 July 1938

Grave number 314B

The hairpin bend

Bt Brown traffic island

grave of CHT and grave A remain, grave B to be removed

series of photos taken on 15th March 2012

series of photos taken on 15th March 2012

The Chinese characters on the tomb stone inscription are read from top down.

Huang 皇 I guess this character: 皇 denotes Imperial, instead of birthplace

in Fujian province due to civilian official rank in the Qing imperial court

Qing 淸 Qing Dynasty

Xian 显 combined with 考 = “late father”
Kao 考

Wei 諱 respect the name below **
Fuo 佛 name = Hood
Tian 添 middle name = Theam
Xie 谢 Surname = Chia written last, in order to link to “gong” => Sir Xie

Gong  公 Sir

Zhi 之  the 3rd last character (modern Chinese is 的) is just a possessive article

Shou 壽, Yu 域. (domain of longevity)

The additional characters at the bottom of the inscriptions are just there to make up the total number of   characters to either 6,7,11,12,16 or 17 which are auspicious and using feng shui principles.
.. location: Blk1, grave 314 B

Note: ** same principle as some Orthodox Christians cannot refer to God by name, but instead as YahWei or the special symbol (://:) found in the old bible; we cannot call our dead parents directly by name to show respect, since the grave stone was installed by the children of the deceased.

On closer inspection of the grave stones of both CHT & YLN, the characters 前宅 can barely by made out, flanking the photos of the deceased. Therefore, the 2 characters  前宅 (Qianzhai) denote the ancestral birthplace in Fujian, similar to that found on the grave stone of their son Chia Keng Tye.

Click here to view or download Chia Hood Theam’s Bt Brown details in Microsoft Word Docx format.

 

 

The proposed road misses this grave by about 10-15m, and there is only one other grave between this grave and the road to be built thru Bt Brown, as shown in the following photo. The grave labelled A remains, while grave B which is marked with the wooden post (arrowed) will be exhumed, due to the proposed road construction.

 

grave of CHT and grave A remain, while grave B is to be removed due to the road

This is a closeup photo of the right half of the previous photo, showing grave A and grave B (which is marked for removal with the arrowed wooden stake).

series of photos taken on 15th March 2012

This photo shows the graves across the road from CHT’s grave which are all marked for removal.

series of photos taken on 15th March 2012