William Lawrence Soma Basapa
Inaugural Excellence Award For Animal Care
What has never been known widely to Singapore is that long before Mandai Zoo, there was actually a Singapore Zoo at Punggol. And that initiative was nothing more than of the brainchild of WLS Basapa (1893-1943) whose deeds were never sufficiently documented and his travails really known! But what is Known, is that he was one of the trustees of the estate of his father Hunmah Somapah (H Somapah), who later became a noted pioneering landowner and philanthropist.
Somapah Road at the Changi Business District was named in honour of Somapah’s contributions to Singapore. The family’s vast land at Somapah village has been acquired under the land acquisition act or sold to private owners WLS Basapa’s name that rings with an alacrity for under him Singapore experienced what could never have been imagined in those early pioneering days when it was still trying to forge a nation out of disparate races. Basapa always had an abiding interest in animals and had helped establish the first full-size public zoo and bird park.
And if there ever was a sobriquet that fitted Basapa aptly, it must be ‘Animal Man’, given to him by historian and journalist Eric Jennings who wrote in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, “[that] he never exactly protested.”, implying that Basapa was the person known as the Animal Man. If anything, he was often accompanied by his personal pet — a full-grown Bengal tiger named “Apay”.
Basapa achieved international acclaim as an animal lover and zoo owner and became the first person to be inducted into the Zoological Society of Great Britain.
Even the world’s most renowned physicist Albert Einstein, when visiting the Singapore zoo said in his travel diary that he came across a ‘wonderful zoological garden’ referring of all things, to Singapore’s first zoo in Punggol.
When Basapa’s wife Rukmani died, Basapa married Alberta Maddox, a Spaniard in April 1922. Basapa lived in grand style. Home was at 549 Upper Serangoon Road, a spot next to where the Youngberg Memorial Hospital once stood and even in the midst of plenty he never lost his instinct for the wild. The zoo was his passion and it epitomized the verve, Basapa had for animals.
It stood on more than an acre of lush ground that Basapa used to house his growing menagerie of wild animals and birds. Thomas Augustine Basapa (TA Basapa) recalled that the number of visitors also grew, to the point where his father deemed it necessary to charge a small fee to enter the grounds.
“Then, at some point, it just got too much,” he added. “Too many animals and birds, too much noise, too many visitors, and too much odour. | think it might have been pressure from my step-mother Alberta that caused my father to buy a 27-acre plot by the sea at the end of track 22 at Punggol, build the zoo and bird park there, and relocate the wildlife from our home.” The development included power-generation, workers’ quarters, and a bungalow on the sea for the Basapa family’s weekends.
The Singapore Zoo, as it was called, became a major attraction for local residents and visitors, winning acclaim from prominent people. And that was evidenced by the knots of visitors to his compound that it elicited effusive mention in the ‘The Lights of Singapore’, a chronology of governmental and cultural events in the island republic by Roland Braddell who was the grandson of Sir Thomas Braddell (after whom Braddell Road & MRT station is named), the first Attorney General of Singapore.
However, the Japanese invasion in 1942 changed the entire matrix and dynamics of a once proud and nascent zoo. The fear of an imminent Japanese invasion and occupation was so very real that British forces decided to occupy the Singapore Zoo and in no time ordered Basapa to move all of his animals out within 24 hours. When Basapa could not find another location at short notice, the “British shot all the animals and reptiles and freed the birds”, leaving my father heartbroken rued his son TA Basapa.
Some of the animals were even sent to a taxidermist to remain as exhibits in a public museum in Singapore. It was a sad day for all animal lovers in Singapore.
WLS Basapa never recovered from the loss of his beloved animals and birds at the Singapore Zoo & Bird Park. He had so much affections for his animals and birds, like his own children. Life became meaningless and unbearable. A year later, at the young age of 50, heart broken, he passed away in 1943 leaving behind his wife, Alberta Maddox and son TA Basapa, who took over the management of his estate.