David Marshall (Singaporean politician)

David Saul Marshall (דייוויד סול מרשל; 12 March 1908 – 12 December 1995), born David Saul Mashal (דוד שאול משעל), was a Singaporean barrister and statesman who served as the inaugural Chief Minister of Singapore from 1955 to 1956.

He resigned after just over a year at the helm after his delegation to London regarding negotiations for complete home rule and eventual independence of Singapore was initially rejected by the British.

Marshall was born in Singapore on 12 March 1908, to Baghdadi Jewish parents Saul Nassim Mashal and Flora Ezekiel Kahn, who had immigrated 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.

Marshall received a strict Orthodox Jewish upbringing.

Marshall attended Saint Joseph's Institution, Saint Andrew's School and Raffles Institution.

Marshall suffered from various illnesses as a teenager, such as malaria and tuberculosis.

His initial goal of being a Queen's Scholar for a medical degree never came when he fell ill and collapsed before the final examinations.

He then went to Belgium to study textile manufacturing.

Upon his return, he joined the textile industry and later worked as a French language teacher and translator.

He then decided to pursue a law career in London, graduating from the University of London.

Upon graduation, Marshall was called to the Bar from the Middle Temple in 1937 before returning 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.

He was initially interned in Changi Prison before being sent to a forced labour camp in Japan.

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.

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.

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.

After returning from China, Marshall stayed on the backbenches before quitting the Labour Front and as a member of the Legislative Assembly in 1957.

However, Marshall was nevertheless instrumental in forging the idea of sovereignty as well as in subsequent negotiations that led to its eventual self-governance from the United Kingdom in 1959.

While Marshall had a privileged upbringing, he was a leftist nationalist who aspired self-determination of the former British Crown colony—having founded the Labour Front and the Workers' Party.

From 1963 onward, Marshall would renounce partisan politics and become an independent politician for the rest of his life.

Singapore would eventually gain its complete independence in 1965 as a sovereign country – his foremost political goal coming into fruition.

When Lee Kuan Yew later abolished Singapore's jury system (1969), he cited Marshall's record as an illustration of its "inadequacy".

In 1978, Marshall became a diplomat and was Singapore's inaugural ambassador to various countries, including of France, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.

During this time, Marshall defended Singapore's interests abroad, despite his old political opponent and fellow barrister Lee Kuan Yew, under his People's Action Party, concurrently in government with Lee as prime minister.

Nevertheless, he publicly maintained constructive criticism of some domestic policies that he had disagreed with.

Marshall retired in 1993, and died two years later of lung cancer in 1995, at the age of 87.