Talk:Colony of Singapore

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Name

According to State of Singapore Act/bill, the colony was officially known as "State of Singapore" after circa 1958, it that a merit to mention in this article? Matthew hk (talk) 11:12, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

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Colony to state

This page erroneously states that the Colony of Singapore lasted until 1963. The State of Singapore succeeded the Colony of Singapore in 1959, and was itself succeeded by the State of Singapore within Malaysia in 1963. There's a missing transition page between this page and Singapore in Malaysia. Please also see this news clipping which says 1959 was when the State of Singapore came into being.

The State of Singapore replaced the British monarchy with the Yang di-Pertuan Negara as head of state. The former governor Goode served as the first before being succeeded by Yusof Ishak at the end of 1959. We need to create a new page for the State of Singapore which lasted between 1959 and 1963. Seloloving (talk) 22:36, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Depends how strictly you treat the name. A split would broadly results in two largely overlapping articles. The only significant difference would be a governance section. We're looking at less than two decades in total here. I would prefer instead to rewrite including "State of Singapore" in bold etc. CMD (talk) 02:45, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

It's not just in name, however, but a separate entity completely. The State of Singapore was proclaimed by the State of Singapore Act 1958 in the British parliament. While a short-lived state which lasted a little less than four years with one prime minister. It still adopted its own flag, anthem and indigenous head of state which did not serve the British crown. Several notable events also happened during its tenure, the Bukit Ho Swee fire, construction of the Jurong Industrial Estate, and the moment where the PAP began to campaign for merger, leading to Operation Coldstore. To place these events here would give the impression they occurred under British rule, which was not the case. I think there could be a lot to write about.

This page is actually missing a lot of the events leading up to the State of Singapore which happened between 1950 and 1959, including several Chinese-led riots, communist paranoia, reforms to the constitution, domestic policies, and elections. While I am aware there's precedent for a combined page like Rhodesia, having the title be Colony of Singapore would not suit the last four years, which is extremely distinct from the previous 13. Would a better page title help? (not that I can think of one now) Seloloving (talk) 03:42, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I will hold back for now as I am still trying to find reliable sources, but have made certain edits to make it clear there were two entities during the period. Seloloving (talk) 04:26, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Depends how you define an entity. It was a new political structure, but the territory, people, etc. were mostly the same. If the focus is just on history, then yes there is easily enough for multiple pages, but they might work better as History articles. (Currently, History of Singapore has no sub-articles at all, part of a wider structural oddity, eg. Singapore in Malaysia is basically a history article.) You make a good point about scope and missing events, and I can envision there being enough content in say History and Governance which could be distinct for the 46-59 and 59-63 periods, which might form separate cores, (and even stuff like infrastructure, such as the creation of HDBs,) but currently this article has just over 1000 words, and there are already existing overlapping and also short articles such as Self-governance of Singapore, which means information is quite spread out. CMD (talk) 05:50, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Good point. I will try to work out how to align these pages in the next few months. This is quite a mess of articles. Even Japanese occupation of Singapore is written like a history article, but has an infobox at the side like it's the page of a state. Seloloving (talk) 11:30, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

References