Hand in Hand with Crossed Top Plates: Mapping the Contribution of Chinese Carpenters to the Production and Installation of Melbourne's Prefabricated 'Singapore Cottages'

There are four nineteenth century prefabricated timber ’Singapore Cottages’ on one property in the Melbourne suburb of Collingwood. Initially on different sites, they were dismantled, transported and erected elsewhere in the city before coming to Collingwood. Originally imported in knocked-down form during the 1850s, they addressed Melbourne’s population surges and lack of builders. Manufactured with Southeast Asian timber by colonial British firms in Singapore, their prefabricated architecture and construction displayed modern European influences. However, vernacular approaches are also evident as their intermediate roof beams suggesting Malay carpenters. Chinese characters on the structure suggest the involvement of Chinese carpenters. The walls use crossed top and bottom plates and scarf joints, common in colonial-period ethnic-Chinese carpentry in Southeast Asia. Nonetheless, these details contrast with vernacular timber architecture in China, suggesting complex origins. This new research will inform the cottages’ established history, by exploring the identity of the cottages’ carpenters and their carpentry origins.