The earliest settlement in Chinatown began in the 1820s, with the arrival of Chinese migrants who braved the high seas to come away from the South Eastern coastal proviences of China seeking their fortunes. Chinese migrants who married the native Malay women had descendents known as the Straits Chinese or "Babas and Nonyas". Living off the crossroads of trades between the West and the Far East, many Straits Chinese prospered as merchants in settlements formed under British colonial rule.

Temple Street was originally named Almeida Street, after its then landlord, the wealthy Portugueses d' Almeida family. Its present name takes after the Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore's first Hindu temple which stands at the corners of Temple and Pagoda Streets.

Many of the existing buildings erected between 1900 and 1941 were used as coolie lodging houses. Chinese wine and tea houses, medical halls, and clan associations sprang up, while the growth of the settlers brought with it mahjong and clog makers, blacksmiths, joss-sticks and religious paraphernalia shops, goldsmiths and pawnshops. As rickshaw pullers plied the streets, fortune-tellers and Chinese calligraphers were a common scene along five-foot ways.