Victoria Street, Singapore

Victoria Street was formally named in 1848 to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Queen Victoria's reign, as part of the British colonial administration's practice of honouring members of the British royal family through urban toponymy. The street had earlier appeared in colonial plans under different names. In the 1823 Jackson Plan, it was marked as Rochor Street, reflecting its connection to the developing Rochor area. Later, George Drumgoole Coleman referred to it as Marbro Street, an abbreviated term derived from "Marlborough" in honour of the Duke of Marlborough. Although it was not part of the original Jackson Plan in its finalised form, the street became an important corridor in Singapore's expanding townscape during the mid-19th century, linking the civic district with the growing residential and commercial quarters of Bugis, Kampong Glam and Rochor.^[1]

Victoria Street was historically referred to as Ji Beh Lor, meaning "Second Horse Carriageway", by the local Chinese community. Like several other roads in the area, it was part of a sequence of main thoroughfares whose English names proved difficult for Chinese speakers to pronounce, leading to the adoption of numerical nicknames based on Hokkien terms for horse-drawn carriage routes. This sequence began with North Bridge Road as "Toa Beh Lor" (First Horse Carriageway), followed by Queen Street as "Sa Beh Lor" (Third Horse Carriageway),^[b] Waterloo Street as "Si Beh Lor" (Fourth Horse Carriageway), Bencoolen Street as "Gor Beh Lor" (Fifth Horse Carriageway), Prinsep Street as "Lak Beh Lor" (Sixth Horse Carriageway) and Selegie Road as "Chit Beh Lor" (Seventh Horse Carriageway).^[2]