The Staff Training Institute was set up in 1971 by the government for the training of civil servants in order to enhance the efficiency of the public sector. The establishment of the institute marked an important milestone in the training of civil servants in ...
The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Transport. Set up on 1 September 1984, the mission of this statutory board is to develop Singapore into an international aviation hub. The board’s responsibilities include ...
Singapore’s earliest attempt to introduce compulsory conscription was in 1952. The endeavour was unsuccessful as it was vigorously resisted by Chinese middle school students and their parents, who did not see the need to support the British colonial government’s ...
In May 1987, the Ministry of Home Affairs arrested 16 people under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for their involvement in a “Marxist conspiracy”. They were detained without trial for between one month and three years. Tan Wah Piow, a former University of Singapore ...
A riot that lasted about two hours erupted in Little India on Sunday, 8 December 2013, following a fatal traffic accident that had occurred along Race Course Road. Some 300 rioters took part in the unrest, which was the worst case of public violence in Singapore ...
One of Singapore’s earliest prisons was located at the foot of Pearl’s Hill in Outram. The original civil jail at the site was built in 1847 by Charles Edward Faber; in 1882, a new prison complex was built around the old civil jail by J. F. A. McNair. Originally ...
The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) is a uniformed organisation that provides emergency services to the nation both during peacetime and under crisis. It serves not only as a fire-fighting authority, but also provides first-aid and rescue services, and acts ...
Shirin Fozdar (b. 1 March 1905, Bombay, India–d. 2 February 1992, Singapore) was a women’s rights pioneer. One of the founders of the Singapore Council of Women (SCW) in 1952, Fozdar was also a key figure in establishing the Muslim Syariah Court and the Women’s ...
The Vigilante Corps (VC) was originally a network of volunteers set up by the government in April 1964 to guard key installations and protect crowded public areas against terrorist attacks by Indonesian saboteurs during the Indonesian–Malaysian Confrontation (1963–66). ...
The Road Courtesy Campaign launched by then Deputy Prime Minister Toh Chin Chye on 10 September 1966 is the first national campaign to try and instil more awareness of road safety in all road users. It marked the start of a sustained effort in Singapore to bring ...
The Public Service Division (PSD) was established under the Ministry of Finance (MOF) on 3 January 1983 to serve as the central body dealing with matters relating to personnel management and career development in the civil service. These matters had previously ...
The Central Fire Station, also known as the Hill Street Fire Station, is Singapore’s oldest surviving fire station. Completed in 1909, the distinctive red-and-white brick building was gazetted as a national monument by the Preservation of Monuments Board on 18 ...
The Singapore Club was an exclusively European, all-male club established in 1861. It admitted only the elite of society, predominantly European tycoons and top British civil servants. It was housed in lavish premises in the Fullerton Building when the building ...
Walter John Napier (b. 10 July 1857, Alderly Lodge, Cheshire, England-d. 14 February 1945) was joint founder of the law firm Drew & Napier, and Attorney-General of the Straits Settlements from 1907 to 1909, during which he was responsible for introducing a new ...
The Chinese Protectorate was established in the Straits Settlements in 1877 to address matters concerning the Chinese community. Its main functions included establishing a pool of civil servants conversant in the Chinese language, managing newly arrived coolie ...
Talma, Edwy Lyonet, commonly known as E. L. Talma, (b. 1 March 1874, Barbados – d. 6 July 1930, Singapore) first came to Malaya in November 1896 and held various appointments in the Malayan Civil Service.
Howe Yoon Chong (b. July 1923, China–d. 21 August 2007, Singapore) was the first chief executive officer (CEO) of the Housing and Development Board (HDB) when it was established in 1960 and head of the civil service from 1975 to 1979. After a civil service career ...
The National Kidney Foundation (NKF) financial scandal involved the revelation of a number of malpractices at the charity organisation, including the misuse of donated funds by its former chief executive officer T. T. Durai. The scandal broke in July 2005 after ...
Frederick Nutter Chasen (b. 1896 Norfolk, England–d. 1942, Singapore) was a zoologist who worked at the Raffles Library and Museum from 1921 to 1941, first as a curator and later as its director. Under his directorship, the institution was developed as a centre ...
Strikes and other forms of labour unrest were common in 1950s Singapore. The year 1955 saw 57 cases of labour unrest involving bus company workers, including the Hock Lee bus workers’ strike and riot. That same year, bus workers of the Singapore Traction Company ...