Robert Peirce (engineer)
Robert Peirce (1863–1933) was a British-born civil engineer in Malaysia and Singapore.
Robert Peirce was born in 1863 and trained as a civil engineer in Manchester before moving to the Straits Settlement of Penang in modern-day Malaysia in 1891.
He started his career articled to Mr. R. Vawser, M. Inst. C.E., of Manchester but spent several years in Birmingham, where he was engaged as resident engineer for the corporation working on the construction of cable tramways. Before arriving in Penang, Peirce was employed as assistant to Pritchard & Co., civil engineers, of London and Birmingham.
Peirce was engineer to the Municipal Commissioners of George Town, Penang from 1891 to 1901.
He won the competition to design the Jubilee Clock Tower to commemorate the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria The gleaming whitewashed tower is topped by a Moorish dome. It has four tiers: the base is octagon-shaped and the following two tiers comprise four distinct sections with elaborate windows, balconies and a working clock on each side. The topmost tier is rounded off with Roman pillars and topped with a golden dome cupola. The six steps leading up to the main entrance denote the number of decades of Queen Victoria's reign.
Jalan Peirce in Penang is named after the Municipal Engineer.
In Singapore, Peirce is best known today for his work on the Kalang River Reservoir or the Lower Peirce Reservoir. While construction began in 1902 - a year in which Singapore experienced a serious drought - the scheme was conceived by a previous Municipal Engineer James MacRitchie in the early 1890s. The reservoir was completed in 1910 according to the commemorative plaque and opened in March 1912. The reservoir and its importance to Singapore is comprehensively described in a contemporary newspaper article For maps and photographs of the Kallang River Reservoir see reference.
Perhaps as a result of the 1902 drought, the Water Department, under Peirce, introduced water metering to Singapore in the following years.
Peirce was warmly praised for his work: 'Singapore now has one of the finest water supplies in the world, and to get that on a tiny island which has no river much bigger than a ditch must have meant long and earnest study and a fine capacity for making the most of available means' The reservoir was renamed the Peirce Reservoir in 1922 in recognition of Peirce's service.
In Singapore, Peirce was responsible for initiating plans to import water from Johor, for the completion of the Woodleigh Filters and the Kallang Tunnel, for the construction of numerous roads and for the planning of the Fort Canning reservoir.
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