The Singapore Prison Service (SPS) is a government agency under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Headquartered at 407 Upper Changi Road North, it administers 14 institutions in Singapore. In addition to ensuring the secure custody of inmates, the prison service works ...
National service (NS) was introduced in post-independence Singapore when the National Service (Amendment) Act came into effect on 17 March 1967. Then Defence Minister Goh Keng Swee justified the government’s decision to introduce compulsory conscription of male ...
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 ...
The old Sembawang Fire Station is located at 80 Admiralty Road West, within the grounds of the former Sembawang Naval Base. Built in 1941, the fire station previously served the naval base. When British military forces withdrew from Singapore in 1971, the naval ...
An emergency blood collection service was started in Singapore in 1939 as war loomed in the Pacific. By 1941, there were thousands of blood donors registered. The Singapore Blood Transfusion Service (SBTS), however, was formed only in June 1946 after the end of ...
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.
The Singapore Red Cross (SRC) is a humanitarian organisation that provides assistance through relief operations in both local and international arenas in times of disaster. SRC also provides health and welfare services to the sick, afflicted and aged, regardless ...
Tampines Regional Library is the first regional public library in Singapore. Originally sited along Tampines Avenue 7, it was officially opened on 3 December 1994. Tampines Regional Library functioned as a “prototype library” where new services and features were ...
The National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) was established on 6 September 1961, with Mahmud Awang as the pro-tem chairman and C. V. Devan Nair its first secretary-general. The labour movement initially represented only a minority of unionised workers. Its membership, ...
Seet Ai Mee (Dr) (b. 31 March 1943, Singapore–) was Singapore’s first female Cabinet minister. She assumed the position in July 1991 when she was appointed Acting Minister for Community Development in a cabinet reshuffle. Seet is also known for her contributions ...
Between 1960 and 1979, the National Library expanded its collections and diversified its services. The number of library members grew from 55,000 in 1963 to more than 322,000 by the end of March 1979. Key developments include the library moving beyond the promotion ...
Lim Peng Siang (b. 1872, Fujian, China–d. 1944, Singapore) was a Chinese merchant who made significant contributions to Singapore’s economic and social developments in the early 1900s. He was a prominent leader of the Chinese community and held key positions in ...
The Parsis (or Parsees) are descendants of Zoroastrian Persians who settled in India in the 10th century. They first arrived in Singapore in the 19th century. As of 2017, an estimated 350 Parsis live in Singapore. Parsi Road and Parsi Cemetery are named after ...
Located at 6 Toa Payoh Central, Singapore, Toa Payoh Community Library (previously known as Toa Payoh Branch Library), as it was then known, was opened on 7 February 1974. Equipped to serve about 250,000 residents in Toa Payoh, it was the second full-time branch ...
The St John Ambulance Brigade (SJAB) is a voluntary organisation founded in England in 1887 to provide first-aid support for public events and emergencies. Established in Singapore in September 1938, the local SJAB has been rendering voluntary first-aid services ...
The National Police Cadet Corps (NPCC) is a youth uniformed group in Singapore supported by the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and the Ministry of Education (MOE). It was set up in 1959 as the Police Cadet Corps (PCC), against the backdrop of nation-building to break ...
The Mosque Building Fund (MBF) was established in 1975 as a means of gathering funds for the building of mosques in new public housing estates in Singapore. Following the formation of the Mendaki Foundation in 1984, the MBF merged with the Mendaki Fund and was ...
Set up in Hong Lim Park on 1 September 2000, Speakers’ Corner is Singapore’s first and only outdoor venue where its citizens are permitted to give public speeches without the Public Entertainment Licence. In 2004, activities exempted from licensing requirements ...
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). ...
Racial Harmony Day is an annual event held on 21 July to commemorate the communal riots of 1964 and teach students the importance of maintaining racial and religious harmony in Singapore’s multicultural and multi-ethnic society. It was launched in 1997 as part ...