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Tan
Cheng Lock (1887-1960), Politician
The Tan Cheng Lock Papers consist of documents
covering all aspects of Tan Cheng Lock’s public life. The most important files are those relating to his
leadership of the Malayan Chinese Association during its formative
period, the early years of the UMNO-MCA Alliance and the role
he played in the struggle for Malaya’s independence. The Tan
Cheng Lock Papers is a valuable source for the study of
Malaysian history for the period immediately before and after independence.
Tun
Dato’ Sir Tan Cheng Lock was a Malaysian nationalist and founder
of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA). A fifth generation
Chinese Malaysian, his great great grandfather migrated to
Malacca from China in 1771.
Tan Cheng Lock was a successful businessman in the
Malayan rubber, tapioca and gambier industries.
He was the Unofficial Member of the Legislative Council
of the Straits Settlement from 1923 to 1934 and became Unofficial
Member of the Governor’s Executive Council from 1933 to 1935.
He founded the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) and became
the first president for the period 1949-1958.
In 1952, Tan Cheng Lock and the United Malays National
Organisation (UMNO) under Tunku Rahman’s leadership contested
the election as partners.
In 1953, he brought MCA into the national coalition
“Alliance” together with UMNO, working towards the independence
of the Federation of Malaya, which subsequently incorporated
the Malayan Indian Congress (MIC) in 1955. He was best remembered for his
contributions in the business and political arenas and his
work for integrating the Chinese and the Indian communities
to the nascent Malayan society.
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Ismail
bin Dato Abdul Rahman (1915-1973), Politician
The Ismail
bin Dato Abdul Rahman Papers consist of 16 folios of 800
documents, dated from 10 February 1938 to 7 December 1982, of
his private and personal correspondences, diary, notes,
memoir, copies of “Siaran Akhbar” and few photographs of
him and his family.
Tun
Dr Ismail, a medical doctor trained in Singapore and
Melbourne, entered Malaysian politics in 1951 when he was
elected vice-president of the United Malays National
Organisation, the dominant Malay political party. An active
participant in the negotiations that led, in 1957, to the
independence of Malaya, he served in various government
offices during the last days of colonial rule before being
sent as his country's first ambassador to the United States
and representative to the United Nations, from 1957 to 1959.
Returning
to Malaya, Tun Ismail was successively minister of external
affairs, internal security, and home affairs but resigned
because of ill health in 1967. He came into his own in 1969,
however, when, recalled to government after the serious racial
riots of that year and the consequent suspension of the
parliamentary process, he did much to defuse racial tensions
and to lead the country back to normalcy. He was appointed
deputy prime minister in 1970 and died in office three years
later.
David
Marshall (1908-1995),
Politician/Diplomat
The David Marshall Private
Papers consist of Workers’ Party documents, election documents,
documents relating to his term as the Chief Minister, letters
showing his stand on Merger/Independence issues as well as
news clippings. The Papers also include photographs and video/audio cassettes
on his interviews.
David Marshall is best known as Singapore's First Chief Minister.
He was born in Singapore to a Jewish family in 1908. In 1937 he was called to the bar (Middle Temple) and
became one of the most famous criminal lawyers of Singapore.
In April 1955, he won parliamentary elections for Singapore's
first elected government on the Labour Front Party ticket
to become Singapore’s first Chief Minister.
He resigned in June 1956 after failing to negotiate
better terms for Singapore's self-rule in London after which
he visited China and managed to help many Jews to leave China.
He wrote letters to his brother detailing his visit.
In 1978, at the age of 70, he was offered the job as Singapore's
ambassador to France, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland until
1993, when he returned to Singapore. He died of lung cancer in 1995.
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S.
Q. Wong Papers (1888-1980), Politician/Entrepreneur
The Papers consist of documents relating to Johore Bahru’s
Town Planning, events leading to Singapore Traction Company’s
(STC) strike in 1955, Union’s request for wage increase for
STC’s daily rated workers as well as clippings on biography
and photographs.
S. Q. Wong (or Wong
Siew Qui) was a well-known personality in Malaysia, a pioneer
lawyer, a successful businessman and a community leader.
He was the son of Wong Ah Fook, the immigrant carpenter
who built palaces for the Sultan of Johor.
S. Q. Wong was born
in Singapore on 23 October 1888. He studied at Raffles Institute and later went to Middle
Temple (Cambridge University) to study law. He was called to the British Bar in 1910.
He later returned to Guandong as the Supreme
Court Judge. Owing to the uncertainty of the political situation in China,
he returned to Singapore to practise law. In 1915, he set up Cooper & Wong Partners.
In 1918, he gave up his law practice, and went into business.
He became legal consultant to many wealthy businessmen
and found
time for social community work. His public offices included his appointment as a member
of the Johor Council of State and Commissioner of Singapore
Municipal Commission from which he was a valuable link between
the two bodies.
As he was a member
of both the Singapore Municipal Commission and the Johor Council
of State, he was a valuable link between the two bodies.
He advocated the Chinese street names to be displayed in
Chinese characters on road signs. He died in 1980 at the age
of 92.
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Alex
Josey Papers (1910-1986), Journalist
The
Alex Josey Private Papers consist of documents on Malaysian
political parties, correspondences of the politicians, the
Hock Lee Riots as well as papers on communist insurgency in
Malaysia. The papers also include Josey’s articles on Lee
Kuan Yew, Malays, Lim
Chin Siong and other political detainees.
Alex Josey, writer, political commentator and journalist was born
in 1910. He began
writing when he was 12 in England. He worked as a foreign correspondent in the region and was
the press secretary of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew for 10
years. He was the Publications Manager of the Singapore International
Chamber of Commerce (SICC) when he was crippled by the Parkinson’s
disease in 1984.
Mr Josey had written more than 30 books. Among his books
are Lee Kuan Yew, Asia-Pacific Socialism and The Trial of Sunny
Ang. He died in Singapore in 1986.]
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Gerald
de Cruz Papers (1920-1991), Politician/Journalist
The Papers consist documents on Chinese education,
articles on communism and communists, Islam in Malaya, industrial
relations in Singapore, the May 13 Riots and Indonesian 1971
Elections.
Former
communist Gerald de Cruz, was born in 1920 to a middle class
Eurasian family. In 1940, he started out as a journalist with the Straits Times.
At the end of World War II, he joined the Communist Party
of Malaya (MCP) and then a Communist front organisation in
Singapore, the Malayan Democratic Union (MDU). He became disillusioned
with communism after visiting Czechoslovakia in 1948.
In
1951, he took up a diploma course on teaching intellectually
disabled children in London. He then spent six years working in that field before
returning to Singapore at the request of David Marshall to
be the Organising Secretary of the Labour Front Government.
He became a Muslim in 1968.
In
the sixties, he helped G. G. Thomson set up the Government’s
Political Study Centre to educate civil servants on world
affairs and local political changes From 1975 to 1985, de
Cruz was actively involved as a training consultant in the
Sarawak Foundation, a government-sponsored body which provides
scholarships for its people. He was also chairman of the Singapore Association for
Retarded Children and an advisor to the National Trade Union
Congress (NTUC). Gerald de Cruz was also diplomatic editor
of the New Nation in the early 1970s and The Sarawak Tribune.
He was the author of Facing facts in Malaya, and Nationalism
and Communism.
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S.
Rajaratnam (1915-2006), Politician
The Rajaratnam Papers consist
of correspondences, speeches, press statements, conference
and seminar notes and newspaper clippings.
S.
Rajaratnam was a veteran leading politician in Singapore.
He was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka)
but grew up in Seremban, Malaya. He studied for a few years in London before and after
the Second World War. After the establishment of self-government in Singapore
in 1959, he held several important posts at different times,
such as the Minister for Culture, the Minister for Foreign
Affairs, the Minister for Labour, the Second Deputy Prime
Minister and the Senior Minister, Prime Minister’s Office.
As Minister of Culture, Mr Rajaratnam was the staunchest advocate
of the concept of multi-racialism in a predominantly Chinese
Singapore. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, he represented
to the regional and international community that Singapore
was not a China-oriented state. He was described as Mr Lee
Kuan Yew’s most
loyal lieutenant.
He retired from politics in 1988 and was the Distinguished
Senior Fellow with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies from
1988 to 1997.
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Tun
Sir (Colonel) Henry H.S. Lee (1901 - 1988), Politician/tin
miner/banker
Tun Sir Henry Lee Hau Shik (H.S. Lee) was a key figure
in the developments of
Malaysia
and
Singapore
from the 1930s to 1980s.
H.S Lee was born in
Hong Kong
in 1901 but subsequently established himself in the 1920s as a
major tin miner in Selangor and Perak. During the Japanese
Occupation of Malaya, he was both a Colonel in the Nationalist
Chinese army and in the British army in
India
. After World War II, Tun Lee was appointed to committees
entrusted with rebuilding the Malayan economy. In 1946, he
founded the China Press, a Chinese newspaper, with the
intention to counter the Communist newspaper Min Sheng Pao and
the propaganda. Tun Lee helped found the Malayan Chinese
Association (MCA) in 1949 and played a key role in forging an
electoral alliance with UMNO in 1952 that later became the
Alliance Party, now the ruling Barisan Nasional. As a
prominent member of the Malayan Chinese community, Tun Lee was
part of the
Alliance
mission led by UMNO President Tunku Abdul Rahman that held
constitutional talks in 1956 in
London
, and he was the only Chinese signatory to the Malayan
Independence Agreement. He was the Minister of Transport from
1955 to 1957 and served as the first Finance Minister of an
independent Federation of Malaya from 1957-1959. He assumed
the post of Financial Chairman for the Board of Commissioner
of Currency,
Malaya
from 1959 to 1961.
Tun Lee was deeply involved in the Chinese
guilds and clan associations, helping to form the Kwang Tung
Association, Chinese Mining Association, and the Chinese
Chamber of Commerce. Being an avid golfer, he was the
President of the Federation of Malaya Olympic Council from
1957-59. He also contributed to the founding of the
Lady
Templer
Hospital
in 1960.
In 1966, Tun Lee established the Development and
Commercial bank (D & C Bank) which became
Malaysia
’s fifth largest bank and he led the Bank till his death in
1988.
The H.S Lee Papers consists of 166 folios
(1,291 files of about 180,000 documents) which include
speeches, correspondence, committee reports, annual reports,
financial statements, newspapers clippings, conference papers,
newsletters and some memorabilia) and about 4,000 photographs,
mostly in digital files.
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Lim
Kim San (1916-2006), Politician
Credited for pioneering Singapore’s housing and
development and enabling high home ownership in Singapore, Mr
Lim Kim San went on to become a minister holding crucial
portfolios such as Finance, National Development, Education,
Interior and Defence, Communications and Information
Technology and Environment. He chaired the Council of
Presidential Advisers from 1992 – 2003. He was the Chairman
of several important government and corporate bodies, such as,
Housing and Development Board, Public Utilities Board,
Port of Singapore Authority
,
Singapore
Press Holdings and Times Publishing, and was the Managing
Director of Monetary Authority of Singapore. In 2000, he was
appointed the first Chancellor of Singapore Management
University. His photo albums of about 1660 photographs are in
the Library’s Private Papers Collection.
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Kernial
S. Sandhu (1929-1992), formerly ISEAS Director
The K.S. Sandhu Papers mainly
consist of documents on Indian emigration, Indian immigrants
in Canada, Sikhs in Canada and related microfilm and audio
tapes.
K.
S. Sandhu studied at the University of Malaya in 1954 and
graduated with a BA (First Class Honours) degree in Geography.
He went to University of British Columbia for his Masters
and the University of London for his Doctorate.
After
teaching at the universities of Malaya, Singapore and British
Columbia, Professor Sandhu was appointed Director of ISEAS
in 1972. Under
Prof Sandhu’s directorship, ISEAS evolved into a major research
centre on SEA, a reputation recognised both within and outside
the region. He was well respected as a scholar and academic
administrator.
His scholarly writings were: Indians in Malaya: some aspects of their immigration and
settlement (1786-1957), 1969; Early Malaysia : some observations
on the nature of Indian contacts with pre-British Malaya,
1973; and Melaka : the transformation of a Malay capital,
c. 1400-1980, 1983.
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