Tropicalising Technologies of Environment and Government: The Singapore General Hospital and the Circulation of the Pavilion Plan Hospital in the British Empire, 1860–1930

In October 1926, at the Annual Dinner of the Straits Settlements Association in

Singapore, Sir Laurence Guillemard, British Governor of the Straits Settlements at

that time, boasted that his speedy recovery from ill-health was a ‘testimony to

Malaya as a health resort’ (Guillemard, 1926: 224). Central to Guillemard’s boast

and his resurrection of the old myth of Malaya as a health resort was the comple-

tion of the new Singapore General Hospital complex. Guillemard (ibid.: 225) pro-

claimed that the new hospital would help turn Singapore into ‘one of the

best-equipped [medical] centres in the Far East’. Guillemard then continued to

elaborate on the various public health initiatives undertaken by his government.