''The Singapore Free Press'' was an English-language daily broadsheet newspaper based in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

History

The paper was founded as

's second English-language newspaper by William Napier,

Edward Boustead Edward Boustead (1800–1888) was an English businessman and philanthropist, who founded Boustead & Co and played an active role in the development of Singapore as a business and trading centre. Boustead was born in Yorkshire, England. He was t ...

, Walter Scott Lorrain and

George Drumgoole Coleman George Drumgoole Coleman (179527 March 1844), also known as George Drumgold Coleman, was an Irish civil architect who played an instrumental role in the design and construction of much of the civil infrastructure in early Singapore, after it wa ...

on 1 October 1835 as the ''Singapore Free Press & Mercantile Advertiser''. Napier edited the paper from foundation until 1846 when he returned to Scotland.

Abraham Logan Abraham Logan (13 August 1816 – 20 December 1873) was the owner and editor of the ''Singapore Free Press''. Also a prominent lawyer, having studied law in Edinburgh, Logan played a significant role in the historic transferral of the Straits Set ...

took over the paper in 1846 running the ''Free Press'' for the next twenty years. His brother,

James Richardson Logan James Richardson Logan (born 10 April 1819 in Berwickshire, Scotland, died 20 October 1869 in Penang, Straits Settlements) was a lawyer who popularised the name Indonesia after it was coined by the English ethnologist George Windsor Earl. He was ...

, ran the ''

Penang Gazette Penang ( ms, Pulau Pinang, is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, Malaysian state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia, by the Strait of Malacca, Malacca Strait. It has two parts: Penang Island, where the capital ci ...

'' which produced cross-pollination of copy between the two papers and a mutual dislike of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

. The ''Free Press'', by then edited by Jonas Daniel Vaughan, remained in circulation until 1869 when increased competition from ''

The Straits Times ''The Straits Times'' is an English-language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore and currently owned by SPH Media Trust (previously Singapore Press Holdings). ''The Sunday Times'' is its Sunday edition. The newspaper was established ...

'' led to its closure. In 1884 the paper went back into circulation under the editorship of Charles Buckley. The Singapore Free Press was bought over by ''The Straits Times'' and was revived with its first publication on 15 May 1946, it was published as a daily. The takeover was mainly to fend off competition from ''

Malaya Tribune Malaya refers to a number of historical and current political entities related to what is currently Peninsular Malaysia in Southeast Asia: Political entities * British Malaya (1826–1957), a loose collection of the British colony of the Straits ...

'', which was launched in 1914. The paper merged with the ''

Malay Mail The ''Malay Mail'' is a newspaper in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, first published on 1 December 1896 when Kuala Lumpur was the capital of the then new Federated Malay States, making it the first daily newspaper to appear in the FMS. As of May 2014, ...

'' in on 28 February 1962.

References

External links

The ''Singapore Free Press'' article on National Library Board Singapore websiteSearch digitised copies of Singapore newspapers from 1831–2009
English-language newspapers published in Asia Newspapers published in Singapore Newspapers established in 1835 Publications disestablished in 1869 Publications established in 1884 Newspapers established in 1946 Publications disestablished in 1962 {{Singapore-newspaper-stub