In Hindi dhoby is the term for laundry, and ghaut (in Anglo-Indian) which means "place or steps along a river". The Indian dhobies especially washerwomen, would wash the clothes of nearby residents along the banks of the fresh water stream of the Sungei Brass Bassa (now Stamford Canal) that ran by Orchard Road and Stamford Road. The laundry would then be dried on the immediate open waste-land, a five-acre lawn that was subsequently occupied by the Ladies Lawn Tennis Club in 1884 till 1924. The land was later called Dhoby Green. These dhobies were loosely referred to as Bengalis or Madrasis, pointing to their origins. The Chinese dhoby did not appear until the 1880s, when the Kling women did the washing.
The area where the laundry work was carried out later converted into an open space and a landscaped park, the Bras Basah Park. Until the early 1970s, from the Orchard Road and Penang Road junction to Handy Road there was a stretch of quaint, low-rise shophouses. Among them Keller Piano sold pianos, other music instruments, music scores and records while Swan Tea House Cakes and Confectionery was also popular. The Cathay Building which opened on 3 October 1939 was Singapore's first skyscraper and the first public space to be air-conditioned.
On the other side of Cathay Building were terraced shops that included aquarium fish and supplies shops, hidden behind which is Kirk Terrace where a row of old pre-war shophouse still exists. Much of the area has been cleared for road widening and some of these spaces have become pleasant little parks and walkways. Sometime in the 1970s the lawn was converted into a public park with carpark space.
In 1988, the Urban Redevelopment Authority expanded and revamped the park, stretching the green space from Dhoby Ghaut to the grounds of the old St. Joseph's Institution (today's Singapore Art Museum), and it is now part of the "Museum Precinct".
By 2005, the area that used to be the Bras Basah Park would be part of the new Singapore Management University, one of Singapore's latest university developments which would stretch along Bras Basah and Stamford Road.
