|
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.
Back to Collection
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.
Back to Collection
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.
Back to Collection
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.]
Back to Collection
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.
Back
to Collection
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.
Back to Collection
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.
Back to Collection
Dorothy
Pelzer (1915-1972), Architect/Researcher
Dorothy
Pelzer was born in America in 1915. She studied at the Institute of Design
in Chicago from 1937 to 1941.
In 1947, she went to the MIT and obtained a master’s
degree in Architecture in 1950.
Subsequently, she both practised and taught architecture
until 1958. Pelzer joined the International Voluntary
Service at Vientiane and Laos between 1962 to 1963.
After she left IVS, Pelzer decided to stay on in Southeast
Asia doing research on her own. She wanted to document the fine traditional house forms which
were fast decaying or being destroyed without records being
kept.
Dorothy
Pelzer travelled extensively, under difficult conditions,
in nine Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia,
Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines. She had assembled 31,000 black and white
photographs and 7000 colour slides. She believed that the
domestic village houses embodied the culture through their
architecture, social customs and religious traditions.
In 1970, Dorothy Pelzer returned to America trying to get
publishers for her book Houses are people.
She did manage to get the contracts but unfortunately
she became seriously ill with cancer in 1971.
She died in 1972 without a draft.
Back to Collection
The Frederic Mason Slides
The Frederic Mason slides collection consists of 880 colour
slides including 217 slides on Japan and Hong Kong. The Malaysian
slides consist of some on tin dredging and rice plantations.
The Singapore slides comprise some on Pulau Tekong schools
and Siglap Orthopaedic Hospital.
Professor Frederic Mason (1913-2000) lived his life as an educationist.
He had a distinguished undergraduate career at Cambridge where
he obtained a first in both parts of the Natural Science Tripos.
After teaching at Manchester Grammar School, Repton, and Leeds
University, he was appointed in 1950, Professor of Education
at the University of Malaya in Singapore. Whilst there, he
organised the training of local graduates wishing to enter
the teaching profession and was influential in the decision
to introduce native language teaching into the local schools.
In 1957, the task of establishing a branch of the University
in Kuala Lumpur was entrusted to him. Before he left he was
awarded an honorary doctorate in law.
After returning to England, he studied for holy orders at
St Augustine's College, Canterbury and was appointed principal
of Christ Church College, Canterbury in 1960. Christ Church
was the first Anglican teacher training college to be created
in the twentieth century. He retired in 1975.
Professor Mason had a lifetime interest in the people and places
where he lived and worked. When working in Singapore and Kuala
Lumpur, he took a great interest in the region. He travelled
in Malaya and visited Borneo, Indonesia, Cambodia, Hong Kong
and Japan. He photographed the places he visited and the people
he met on his journeys and when he died he left an extensive
collection of slides. His son, Peter, donated the Southeast
Asian slides to this library for future research.
Reference: Peter Mason, 20 September 2002.
Back to Collection
|
