page_title: James MacRitchie
section_title: Singapore Municipal Engineer
hierarchical_section_title: James MacRitchie / Singapore Municipal Engineer
caption_attribution_description: English: Lau Pa Sat (Telok Ayer Market), Singapore, viewed from above.
context_page_description: James MacRitchie was Municipal Engineer to the Singapore Municipal Commission from 1883 to 1895. Singapore's oldest reservoir Macritchie Reservoir was named after him in 1922.
context_section_description: MacRitchie took over as Municipal Engineer from Thomas Cargill in 1883. His report to the Municipal Commission in 1884 demonstrates the wide range of duties he had to undertake in Singapore as well as his diligence.  During his career he was responsible for numerous works and immense improvements in the streets, bridges, public markets, abattoirs and other infrastructure in Singapore.
  MacRitiche was the architect for the new cast-iron octagonal-shaped Lau Pa Sat market (now a national monument) which was relocated to its present position in 1894.  MacRitchie followed the original style of George Drumgoole Coleman's 1838 market.
  His first major Singapore project was the iron Coleman Street Bridge which replaced a rickety wooden bridge; over the 12 years of his career as Municipal Engineer he caused 'innumerable' bridges in Singapore to be replaced with iron bridges he designed.  His design of small iron bridges first used in Singapore was soon being used throughout Malaya.
  MacRitchie applied himself to the problem of night soil and studied various alternatives for Singapore including a pneumatic system and conversion to 'poudrette'.  The Municipal Commission sent him on a 3-month fact finding trip to India in 1893 to inspect sanitation, night soil and water supply systems and to bring best practices back to Singapore.  The report he prepared had 'all the data and, in many cases, the worked out detail for dealing with the sewage and refuse of Singapore' and was described as 'a valuable contribution to municipal engineering in the East'.
  Water supply was a priority for MacRitchie.  He replaced water mains and introduced a water filtration plant after which the water supply was said to be second to none in the region. He drew on best practice from England and experimented with a new 'Polarite' filtration material for Singapore.  His experience was called upon in Penang where he was asked to advise the Municipal Commission on a new reservoir in 1890  It may have been on one of these visits that he worked on the design of the reservoir of the Penang Botanic Gardens waterfall completed in 1892.
  He is best remembered for the Thomson Road or the Impounding Reservoir which is known today as the MacRitchie Reservoir. Construction proved a challenge and was delayed when the works were flooded four times during the 1891-94 construction period. When completed, the 'magnificent waterworks', one and a half miles in length and five and a half miles in circumference, provided the city with 650 million gallons of storage.  MacRitchie calculated that this gave Singapore 130 days storage and supply based on daily consumption of 3.2 million gallons of water per day in 1895. MacRitchie noted that the demand for water had more than doubled from 1.4 million gallons per day in 1885 which explains the enormous value and importance of the Impounding Reservoir.
  The historic timeline of the MacRitchie Reservoir Park is shown in the footnote
  Three Reservoirs in Singapore are named after influential Municipal Engineers: James MacRitchie, Robert Peirce (engineer) and David J. Murnane.
caption: Lau Pa Sat from above
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