Students in London set up the Malayan Forum in 1949 to advocate for independence in the region. LSE Library’s Emma Pizarro uses student files from the archives to learn more about the LSE students who were part of the movement. Although their education focused on colonial governance, it was during their student years that they developed their postcolonial vision and connected with others who would become influential figures in post-independence politics and public life.

The Malayan Forum was a political discussion group set up in 1949 by students in London advocating for the independence of the Federation of Malaya (now part of Malaysia) and Singapore from British control. Members were keen to educate themselves politically in preparation for independence and the group proved to be fertile ground for the development of future leaders and high-ranking public servants in post-war Malaysia and Singapore.

Three LSE students were among the founding members of the Malayan Forum – Goh Keng Swee (who served as the first chairman), Frederick Arulanandom, and Mohamed Sopiee bin Sheikh Ibrahim – whilst several others involved in its formative years also studied at the School, including Wan Abdul Hamid and Lee Kuan Yew (though Lee transferred his studies to Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge after just one term at LSE).

As membership expanded, the Malayan Forum held their meetings at Malaya Hall in Bryanston Square, and produced a journal called Suara Merdeka (“Voice of Freedom”). Their discussions often centred on issues of post-independence governance and the challenge of uniting the region’s distinct ethnic, religious and cultural groups under a shared national identity. The Forum was influential enough to eventually attract the attention of the British government who identified the group as a potential communist threat and surveilled its members and activities.

The origins of Singapore’s People’s Action Party (PAP) can be traced to the Malayan Forum, with Goh and Lee – who in 1959 became the first prime minister of Singapore – continuing to meet regularly with other PAP founders at Lee’s home at 38 Oxley Road upon their return to Singapore in the early 1950s.

Goh Keng Swee

It was whilst working for the Department of Social Welfare in the colonial civil service that Goh earned a scholarship to study statistics at LSE in 1948. We can see from the LSE Calendars that he graduated in 1951 with a first class BSc Economics degree, and was awarded the Farr Medal and Prize (for proficiency in statistics, in memory of Dr William Farr) and the University Postgraduate Studentship in Economics. Goh returned to study at LSE a few years later and was awarded his PhD in the 1956/57 academic year.

Three years after completing his PhD, Goh became Singapore’s first Minister for Finance when the PAP were voted into power in 1959, and he later held other prominent offices as the Minister for Defence, Minister for Education and Deputy Prime Minister. He was made an honorary fellow at LSE in 1966, during Sir Sydney Caine’s time as Director.

Caine had been the first vice-chancellor of the University of Malaya in Singapore (1952 to 1957) and it seems he maintained an interest in politics in the region on his return to Britain, as well as links with Goh and the Singapore government. In March 1957 he spoke at a Malayan Forum meeting on “Prospective economic developments in Malaya” and had a letter published in Suara Merdeka that expressed his view that “enlightened British opinion had come, long before the outbreak of Communist violence in Malaya, to regard the eventual grant of self-government as only a matter of time.” Letters in the personal papers of merchant banker Siegmund Warburg also reveal that in 1968 Caine recommended the Warburg firm to Goh to look after some of Singapore’s investment matters.

Frederick Arulanandom

Frederick Arulanandom studied at LSE between 1946 and 1948 on the Colonial Social Science course, obtaining the certificate with distinction. Like Goh, Arulanandom’s studies at LSE were supported by the Colonial Office as he was the recipient of a Colonial Development and Welfare Fund scholarship. In a speech to the Malayan Forum at Malaya Hall London in January 1950, Lee remarked on the Colonial Office’s post-war policy of increasing the number of scholars sent to England as being, to a large extent, intended “to ally the potential leaders of a potential Malayan nationalist movement, with the existence of British rule in Malaya.”

A brief exchange of letters in Arulanandom’s student file tell us that he went on to read for the Bar after graduating and when attending a dinner for Malayan students in 1949 he was invited by LSE Director Sir Alexander Carr-Saunders to meet with him before returning to Kuala Lumpur the following year. There’s no indication of what they discussed at that meeting but in 1947 Carr-Saunders had served as chairman of the commission which recommended the establishment of the University of Malaya, so he may have retained an interest in students from the region. Carr-Saunders’ engagement diary for 1947 records the names of educational institutions in Singapore and Malaysia which he visited as part of his enquiry.

Lee Kuan Yew

The student file held for Lee Kuan Yew is brief, given that he was only registered at LSE for one term in 1946, but in that short time he made a very favourable impression on staff in the Law Department. Sir David Hughes Parry, Professor of English Law, interviewed him for admission and reported that “This applicant impressed me very much. He has planned his future carefully and wisely, I think, and has earned his own keep. I shall be surprised if he does not do very well.” Lee’s adviser of studies, Sir Otto Kahn Freud, commented “One of the best members of the class. Highly intelligent and promising.”

In January 1947 Lee requested a meeting with Hughes-Parry to discuss his decision to transfer to the University of Cambridge, which he explained was for financial reasons as “to be in London was 3 times as expensive as Cambridge”. Although he relocated from London, Lee continued to attend Malayan Forum meetings as a student. He also maintained this link with the Forum after completing his studies and moving into his role as a political leader, by giving talks and submitting articles for publication in Suara Merdeka on topics such as the social and economic position of foreign-educated students in Malayan society.

Wan Abdul Hamid

Following completion of his undergraduate degree at the University of Malaya, Wan Abdul Hamid received a scholarship through his employment with the Johore Civil Service, on the understanding that he read for an Honours degree in Sociology at LSE. In a letter of support for Hamid’s application found in his student file, a professor at the University of Malaya remarked that “I suspect they are grooming him for one of the branches of Social Service now being developed.”

Hamid began a BSc in Sociology at LSE in 1952 but his studies ended abruptly when his scholarship was withdrawn in his final year. At the invitation of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, Hamid and his wife spent the summer of 1954 travelling in China – a trip that the government of Johore disapproved of and warned them not to undertake. His student file shows that Carr-Saunders wrote to John Lucien Keith, Director of Colonial Scholars at the Colonial Office, to see if Hamid’s scholarship could be reinstated; the School was ultimately told “In our view the Johore State Government were perfectly right. […] the issue must now rest between Wan Hamid and his employers.”

The reaction of the government to Hamid’s visit to China is perhaps unsurprising given that it took place in the midst of the “Malayan Emergency”, a guerrilla war between communist pro-independence fighters and the military forces of the Federation of Malaya, British Empire and Commonwealth. At the time of the trip Hamid was also chairman of the Malayan Forum but he was ousted in 1956 through an organised campaign by Goh who felt the ideals of the Forum had been subverted by communist students. Later, as prominent moderate members of the PAP in Singapore, Goh and Lee would oversee the expulsion of the leftist faction from the Party.

LSE registered many students supported by Colonial Office scholarships and played a significant role in educating those destined for careers in colonial administration. The School’s ties to the region that would become independent Malaysia and Singapore, through both its student body and two of its Directors, reflect the historical connection between LSE and the British colonial project. LSE student records can often be useful in tracing that connection, as well as helping us to understand aspects of the experience of students from colonised countries in Britain.

Although they may have run into some ideological differences, the LSE students who founded the Malayan Forum, and who were active in its discussions on a future Malayan nation, were united by their resolute commitment to achieving independence. The students were, on the one hand, educated within a system largely designed to enable colonial governance, but it was during their student years that they developed their postcolonial vision and fostered connections with others who would become influential figures in post-independence politics and public life.

How to use LSE Library archives for your research

LSE archives are open to all. Get in touch with the Library at library.enquiries@lse.ac.uk to find out more about accessing and using our LSE history resources and archives and special collections for your own research project.

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