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A View Of Station Road, Ipoh

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Subject :A View of Station Road, Ipoh
Published By : None 
Location : Station Road, Ipoh
Estimated Year : 1910
Media Type : Photograph
Source : National Archives of Malaysia
Remark :

The picture shows a view of Station Road, Ipoh. It can be seen that there are many rickshaw pullers on the street as it was the most popular mode of transport then. The rickshaws would be mostly Malayan made and by this time with the benefit of locally made rubber tyres.

During the peak years from 1907 and thereafter, many stylish buildings were built in this road, including those of major companies, for example:

  • The Chung Thye Pin Building (which became the Ipoh's most famous corner pharmacy - first Dr Connolly's Medical Hall, then Oldfield's and subsequently Georgetown Dispensary),

  • The Straits Trading Company (which leased offices to the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank until 1931),

  • The Chartered Bank (The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China),

  • The Mercantile Bank, which replaced the building on the left (with striped "Chick" blinds) in 1931. It was designed by B M Iverson,

  • Whiteaway and Laidlaw, the leading department store in Ipoh,

  • Charles Grenier & Co Ltd, who originally imported British Made 'Centaur' pedal cycles. They also ran a small press as 'Printers Stationers and Publishers' with its head office here, with branches in Kuala Lumpur and Seremban. They published a business directory entitled 'Belgian Rubber Interests in Malaya and Sumatra' around 1913. The Ipoh business was managed by the Jansz family for many years.

  • The Station Hotel, (as the railway station at that time was a single storey wood and atap building with no accommodation facilities.)

  • Dr Connolly was an Irishman trained in Trinity College and recruited to Malaya on government service. He then went into private practice, became an editor of the Times of Malaya and founded the Perak Anti-Opium Society.

    Many other smaller, but famous companies also took up property here although premises changed hands from time to time, for example:

  • At No. 15 Station Road was H Simoyama's Dental Office & Satow Surgeon Dentist.

  • At No 37 Station Road was Leong Yew Koh’s legal firm,

  • At No 43 Station Road, was S P H De Silva, a jeweller housed in a Victorian neo-Renaissance building constructed in 1931.


  • To read a brief history of the Rickshaw, click here.

    To read more about Chung Thye Phin  click here.

    To read more about the Chartered Bank, click here.

    To read more about the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, click here.

    To read more about the Mercantile Bank, click here.

    To read more about Whiteaway and Laidlaw, click here.

    To read more about The Straits Trading Company, click here.

    To read more about The Times of Malaya, click here.

    To see more about S P H de Silva, click here.

    To read more about Floods in Station Road, Ipoh, in 1926, click here.

    Filename : 20080117-124