David Marshall (Singaporean politician)

The Right Honourable David Marshall DKJP
1st Chief Minister of Singapore
In office 6 April 1955 – 7 June 1956
Governor	Sir John Fearns Nicoll (1952–55) Sir William Goode (1955) Sir Robert Brown Black (1955–57)
Preceded by	Newly Created
Succeeded by	Lim Yew Hock
Constituency	Cairnhill SMC (1959) Anson SMC (1961)
1st Chairman of the Workers' Party of Singapore
In office 1957–1963
Preceded by	Newly Created
Succeeded by	Chiang Seok Keong Acting Chairman of the Workers' Party of Singapore
Constituency	Cairnhill SMC (1959) Anson SMC (1961)
Member of the Legislative Assembly for Anson
In office 15 July 1961 – 3 September 1963
Preceded by	Mohammed Baharuddin Ariff
Succeeded by	Govindaswamy Perumal
Member of Legislative Assembly for Cairnhill
In office 2 April 1955 – 29 April 1957
Preceded by	New Seat
Succeeded by	Soh Ghee Soon
Personal details
Born	David Saul Mashal 12 March 1908 Singapore, Straits Settlements
Died	12 December 1995(1995-12-12) (aged 87) Singapore
Nationality	Singaporean
Political party	Labour Front (1954–1957) Workers' Party of Singapore (1957–1963) Independent (1963–1995)
Spouse(s)	Jean Mary Gray ​ (m. 1961)​
Children	4[1]
Mother	Flora Ezekiel Marshall
Father	Saul Nassim Marshall
Alma mater	University of London
Profession	Politician, diplomat and lawyer

David Saul Marshall DKJP (born David Saul Mashal; 12 March 1908 – 12 December 1995), was a Singaporean politician and lawyer who served as Singapore's first Chief Minister from 1955 to 1956. As the founder and president of the Labour Front (now is Workers' Party), Marshall was instrumental in the negotiations that led to the home rule and eventual independence of Singapore from the United Kingdom.

Early life and education[]

Marshall was born in Singapore in 1908, to Sephardi Jewish parents Saul Nassim Marshall and Flora Ezekiel Kahn, who had migrated to Singapore from Baghdad, which was then a part of the Ottoman Empire, where they ran a business. His family name was originally Mashal, which was later anglicised as Marshall in 1920. He had at least six siblings.^[2]

Marshall received a strict Orthodox Jewish upbringing.^[3] Educated at Saint Joseph's Institution, Saint Andrew's School, he afterwards attended the Raffles Institution and the University of London.^[4]

Legal career and war service[]

After graduating from the University of London, Marshall was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple, London in 1937 and returned to Singapore to commence a legal career.

In 1938, following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Marshall volunteered for military service with a British reserve unit, the Straits Settlements Volunteer Force. He was assigned to "B" Company, 1st Battalion (1SSVF) – a company composed mostly of continental Europe expatriates. He was detained briefly by military police after objecting to the fact that he and other volunteers classified as "Asian" were paid at half the rate received by "European" members of the SSVF.

In February 1942, he saw action against the Imperial Japanese Army, in the Holland Road area, during the last few days of the Battle of Singapore. Marshall became a prisoner-of-war (POW) following the British surrender.^[5] He was initially interned in Changi Prison before being sent to a forced labour camp in Japan.^[3]

Reflecting later on his experience as a POW, Marshall commented:

[The Japanese Occupation] taught me humility ... Three and a half years as a prisoner taught me humility ... I realised [as a Japanese prisoner-of-war] that mankind is capable of cold-hearted cruelty. I can be angry, and I have no doubt I can be cruel for five, ten minutes. But the Japanese cruelty was cold-blooded, permanent, and eternal. Man's inhumanity to man in fact, in real life, made its presence really known to me when I became a prisoner and saw it in action. Of course, I have known cruelty before. But wide-spread, long-term, cold-blooded, permanent cruelty, I've never experienced before, not even from the British Imperialists no matter how arrogant they were. That was a major shock, the feeling that there were human beings who were not on the same wavelength as me at all, who were not even human from my point of view.

Most of Marshall's immediate family had emigrated to Australia before the war began. After the war ended Marshall spent time with his family in Australia, before returning to Singapore in 1946.

He became a successful and prominent criminal lawyer. Known for his sharp eloquence and imposing stance, Marshall claimed that he had secured 99 acquittals out of 100 cases he defended for murder during Singapore's period of having trial by jury. When Lee Kuan Yew later abolished Singapore's jury system (1969), he cited Marshall's record as an illustration of its "inadequacy".

Political career[]

In April 1955, Marshall led the left-wing Labour Front to a narrow victory in Singapore's first Legislative Assembly elections. He formed a minority government and became Chief Minister. He resigned in April 1956 after a failed delegation to London to negotiate for complete self-rule. Replacing him as Chief Minister was Lim Yew Hock.

After resigning, Marshall visited China for two months at the invitation of Zhou Enlai, the Chinese Premier. Contacted by a representative of a group of over 400 Russian Jews who were being refused exit from Shanghai by the Chinese authorities, Marshall spoke with Zhou and managed to have them released.^[6]

After returning from China, Marshall stayed on the backbenches before quitting the Labour Front and as a member of the Legislative Assembly in 1957. On 7 November 1957, he founded the Workers' Party of Singapore (WP). He won a by-election in Anson on 15 July 1961.^[4]

Marshall lost his seat in Cairnhill Single Member Constituency to Lim Yew Hock, the Chief Minister, in the 1959 general election as a WP candidate, but won in Anson Single Member Constituency in the 1961 by-election. He resigned from the Workers' Party in January 1963 after a spat with the party. After losing his seat again in the 1963 general election as an independent candidate, he returned to practice law and remained active in politics even after J. B. Jeyaretnam became the leader of the WP in 1972.

Although Marshall consistently praised Lee Kuan Yew and People's Action Party for their economic successes, he also condemned the repression of freedom of speech and public freedoms. "We should keep in mind the horrors of [China's] Cultural Revolution, brought about by the cult of subservience to authority and primacy of society over the individual before we point the accusing finger at those who believe that respect for the individual is the basis of human civilisation", he said.^[7]

Peter Lambda's bust of Marshall, created in 1956, at the School of Law, Singapore Management University

From 1978 to 1993, Marshall served as Singapore's Ambassador to France, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland. As an ambassador, Marshall always defended Singapore's interests, despite his differences with Lee Kuan Yew's government. He retired from the diplomatic corps in 1993.^[8]

Personal life[]

Marshall married Jean Mary Gray in 1961. Jean was born on 13 April 1926 in Kent, South East England, she came to Malaya in 1953 to take up a post with the Red Cross as a medical social worker. They had four children, Ruth, Sara, Joanna and Jonathan and six grandchildren.

Death and memorials[]

Marshall died in 1995 of lung cancer.

In 2011, the Marshall estate donated a bust of Marshall created by Hungarian sculptor Peter Lambda to the Singapore Management University (SMU) School of Law's moot court, which is named after Marshall.^[9] His widow Jean expressed the hope that the tribute would inspire all law students at SMU to pursue the qualities of passion, diligence, courage and integrity that had distinguished her late husband's remarkable achievements.^[10]

His widow Jean Marshall died in Singapore on 29 March 2021, two weeks before her 95th birthday.^{[11] [12][13]}

See also[]

• History of the Jews in Singapore

References[]

• Curriculum Planning & Development Division, Ministry of Education (2007). Singapore: From Settlement to Nation pre-1819 to 1971. Singapore: EPB/Pan Pacific. ISBN 978-981421183-3.
• "David Saul Marshall". Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board. 2008. Archived from the original on 18 March 2015.
• Sim, Susan (13 December 1995). "Shooting star of S'pore a legend in his lifetime". The Straits Times.

External links[]

• Works by or about David Marshall in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Yadav, Dharmendra (8 August 2006). "Meeting David Marshall in 1994". Think Happiness [blog]. Archived from the original on 16 February 2014.