The Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia. Originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Company, the Straits Settlements came under British Raj control in 1858 and then under direct British control as a Crown colony in 1867. In 1946, following the end of the Second World War and the Japanese occupation, the colony was dissolved as part of Britain's reorganisation of its Southeast Asian dependencies in the area.
The Malayan Union was a union of the Malay states and the Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca. It was the successor to British Malaya and was conceived to unify the Malay Peninsula under a single government to simplify administration. Following opposition by the ethnic Malays, the union was reorganised as the Federation of Malaya in 1948.
The Federation of Malaya was a federation of what previously had been British Malaya, comprising eleven states that existed from 1 February 1948 until 16 September 1963. The Federation became independent on 31 August 1957, and in 1963, Malaysia was formed when Malaya united with Singapore, North Borneo, and Sarawak.
The national flag of Malaysia, also known as the Stripes of Glory, is composed of a field of 14 alternating red and white stripes along the fly and a blue canton bearing a crescent and a 14-point star known as the Bintang Persekutuan. The 14 stripes, of equal width, represent the equal status in the federation of the 13 member states and the federal territories, while the 14 points of the star represent the unity among these entities. The crescent represents Islam, the country's state religion; the blue canton symbolises the unity of the Malaysian people; the yellow of the star and crescent is the royal colour of the Malay rulers. It is in the stars and stripes family of flags.
A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony governed by England, and then Great Britain or the United Kingdom within the English and later British Empire. There was usually a governor to represent the Crown, appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the UK Government, with or without the assistance of a local council. In some cases, this council was split into two: an executive council and a legislative council, and the executive council was similar to the Privy Council that advises the monarch. Members of executive councils were appointed by the governors, and British citizens resident in Crown colonies either had no representation in local government, or limited representation in a lower house. In several Crown colonies, this limited representation grew over time. As the House of Commons of the British Parliament has never included seats for any of the colonies, there was no direct representation in the sovereign government for British subjects or citizens residing in Crown colonies.
A referendum on the terms of integration into the Federation of Malaya was held in Singapore on 1 September 1962. There were three options. At the time of the referendum, Singapore was a self-governing country since 1959, although the British Empire still controlled external relations.
Lim Yew Hock was a Singaporean-born Malaysian politician and diplomat who served as Chief Minister of Singapore between 1956 and 1959. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cairnhill between 1959 and 1963 and previously a Member of the Legislative Council and later Legislative Assembly between 1948 and 1963. He was de facto Leader of the Opposition between 1959 and 1963. He and his family elected to take up Malaysian citizenship after Singapore's independence from Malaysia.
Sir Franklin Charles Gimson was a British colonial administrator who served as Governor of Singapore from 1946 to 1952.
The Legislative Council of the Colony of Singapore was the legislative council of Singapore that assisted the governor in making laws in the colony. It officially came into existence in 1946, when the Straits Settlements (Repeal) Act 1946 abolished the Straits Settlements, and made Singapore a Crown colony that would need its own legislative council. Based on existing systems already in place when the council operated under the Straits Settlements, it was partially opened for public voting in 1948, before being replaced by the Legislative Assembly in 1953.
The Legislative Council of the Straits Settlements was a legislature formed on 1 April 1867, when the Straits Settlements was made a Crown colony. This allowed laws to be made swiftly and efficiently, as it was directly responsible to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in London, instead of being placed under a legislative hierarchy and answering to the Calcutta government based in India.
The term "British Malaya" loosely describes a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the island of Singapore that were brought under British hegemony or control between the late 18th and the mid-20th century. Unlike the term "British India", which excludes the Indian princely states, British Malaya is often used to refer to the Federated and the Unfederated Malay States, which were British protectorates with their own local rulers, as well as the Straits Settlements, which were under the sovereignty and direct rule of the British Crown, after a period of control by the East India Company.
The history of the modern state of Singapore dates back to its founding in the early 19th century; however, evidence suggests that a significant trading settlement existed on the island in the 14th century. The last ruler of the Kingdom of Singapura, Parameswara, was expelled by the Majapahit or the Siamese before he founded Malacca. Singapore then came under the Malacca Sultanate and subsequently the Johor Sultanate. In 1819, British statesman Stamford Raffles negotiated a treaty whereby Johor would allow the British to locate a trading port on the island, ultimately leading to the establishment of the Crown colony of Singapore in 1867. Important reasons for the rise of Singapore were its nodal position at the tip of the Malay Peninsula flanked by the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the presence of a natural sheltered harbour, as well as its status as a free port.
Merdeka is a term in Indonesian and Malay which means "independent" or "free". It is derived from the Sanskrit maharddhika (महर्द्धिक) meaning "rich, prosperous, and powerful". In the Malay Archipelago, this term had acquired the meaning of a freed slave. The term is also used in other Indonesian languages.
The self-governance of Singapore was carried out in several stages. Since the founding of Singapore in 1819, Singapore had been under the colonial rule of the British. The first local elections on a limited scale for several positions in the government of Singapore started in 1948 following an amendment to the Constitution of Singapore.
Singapore, officially the State of Singapore, was one of the 14 states of Malaysia from 1963 to 1965. Malaysia was formed on 16 September 1963 by the merger of the Federation of Malaya with the former British colonies of North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore. This marked the end of the 144-year British rule in Singapore which began with the founding of modern Singapore by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819. At the time of merger, it was the smallest state in the country by land area, but the largest by population.
The Legislative Assembly of the State of Singapore was the legislature of the Government of Singapore from 1955 to 1965 and is the predecessor of the Parliament of Singapore. The Rendel Constitution, proposed in 1953, sought to give the local population more self-governance as the Merdeka independence movement grew. The Constitution took effect upon the conclusion of the 1955 general election, creating the new Legislative Assembly to replace the Legislative Council of Singapore. In contrast to the Legislative Council, the majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly in 1955 were allotted by election rather than appointment by the British colonial government. 25 seats were elected and 7 were appointed. The British colonial government still reserved significant power, such as that of veto and control of certain aspects of the government.
The Malaysia Agreement or the Agreement relating to Malaysia between United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Federation of Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore (MA63) was the agreement which combined North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore with the existing states of the Federation of Malaya, the resulting union being named Malaysia. Singapore was later expelled from Malaysia, becoming an independent state on 9 August 1965.
The chief secretary of Singapore, known as the colonial secretary of Singapore before 1955, and the colonial secretary of the Straits Settlements before 1946, was a high ranking government official position in the Straits Settlements before 1946 and the Colony of Singapore after 1946, between 1867 and 1959. It was second only to the governor of Singapore, formerly the governor of the Straits Settlements in the colonial government.
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