Edward Vethanayagam Davies (March or 5 April 1891 – 9 August 1963) was a Singaporean educator and politician who served on the Municipal Commission of Singapore and then on the City Council of Singapore.
Born in Ceylon, Davies came to Singapore in 1913 and was appointed the headmaster of the Rangoon Road School in 1935. He continued with the school, which later became the Rangon Road English School, until he stepped down in 1947. He became the local Chief Inspector of Schools in 1942 during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore.
Davies was elected to the Municipal Commission of Singapore in December 1949, representing the North Ward as a member of the Labour Party, being named the party's leader on the commission following the mid-1950 resignation of Pat Johnson. As a commissioner, he pushed for Singapore's achieving official city status, which was officially attained in 1951. He remained on the council when the commission was then replaced by the City Council of Singapore.
In mid-1952, Davies led a walkout of nine councillors, five of the Labour Party and four independents, in protest of an amendment introduced by Progressive Party leader A. P. Rajah which he felt would heavily favour that party. This led to the amendment being passed with just six votes, all from the Progressive Party. However, he had a falling out with the party's General Council when he was not fielded as a candidate in the 1952 City Council election.
Early life and career Davies was born in March or on 5 April 1891 in British Ceylon. He was the son of U. S. Davies and grew up with at least three brothers and four sisters; he and his family moved to British Malaya. He first began as a teacher at the Methodist Boys' School in Kuala Lumpur within the Federated Malay States in 1911. He came to Singapore in 1913 as a teacher with the Outram Road School, eventually rising to the post of senior master there. In April 1921, Davies was elected the honorary secretary of the Singapore Teachers' Association, and was elected its chairman in June 1935. In this capacity, he supported an experiment on the use of gramophones to teach English. He remained in that post until March 1937, when he was succeeded by Frank Caulfield James and was instead elected a vice-president.
On 3 June 1935, Davies was officially transferred to the Rangoon Road School as headmaster, reportedly becoming the first Asian headmaster of an English school in Singapore. A farewell was held at the residence of a master of the Outram Road School. During the event, a letter from headmaster Goodman Ambler, who was then on leave, was read out. In it, Ambler claimed that Davies "[possessed] the three great attributes of a successful and popular headmaster — ability, zeal and tact." During WWII, Singapore fell to and was occupied by the Japanese beginning on 15 February 1942. By August, Davies had been appointed the Chief Inspector of Schools in Syonan, as Singapore was then known. In November, a Teachers' Association was formed by the Japanese government with his support. Historian Harold E. Wilson wrote that this body "served as an instrument of control and indoctrination in the hands of authorities rather than as a means to represent the interests of the profession." Educator N. I. Low recalled that Davies was an "efficient [shock-absorber], receiving the Japanese shocks passing them on to us greatly reduced." On 15 February 1945, he was awarded a Certificate of Merit by the Mayor of Syonan-to, , for his administrative work as Chief Inspector.
Davies stepped down from Rangoon Road School in 1947, after which he turned his attention to adult education, becoming a committee member of the People's Education Association. In July 1948, he was teaching a class of 50 adults organised by the association. In this period, he was also the secretary and a manager to Indian Publishers Ltd., which published the Indian Chronicle, reportedly the second English-language Indian daily in Singapore, edited first by S. D. Luther and then by V. P. Abdullah.
Politics 1949 Election In mid-October 1949, Davies joined the Labour Party (SLP), formed in 1948 to advocate for workers' rights by unionists, in particular M. A. Majid, P. M. Williams and M. P. D. Nair. It was the second political party active in Singapore at the time, after the Progressive Party (PP). He stated that his "sympathies had always been with labour", even before his becoming a member of the SLP. Davies later claimed that he had initially been invited to join the PP, but he turned them down, citing his experiences with those of the middle and lower classes as a teacher, instead turning to the SLP despite that party being financially "poor" in contrast.
Within days of Davies joining the party, the SLP announced four of the six candidates it had fielded to contest in the upcoming election for the Municipal Commission, to be held on 3 December; they were F. Bernard Oehlers, S. M. A. H. Chisty, Mak Pak Shee and S. S. Manyam. The last two candidates, as well as the Wards each candidate was to contest, were then still kept under wraps to "keep the Progressives guessing about their opponents". Of the four candidates revealed, only Chisty had previously stood for election. The PP had taken control of the commission in the previous election in April, winning 13 out of 18 seats, with the SLP winning just one. In December, six seats were up for grabs, one in each ward; of these seats, four were occupied by PP members, with the other two being occupied by independents, one of whom decided on running on the PP ticket. The PP attempted something similar with regard to keeping the electorate "in the dark", though all four of the party's commissioners whose term ended in December were expected to stand for re-election. Manyam was then disqualified, leaving just Oehlers, Chisty and Mak as the SLP's revealed candidates.
The SLP announced its full line-up for the election on 25 October; Davies was announced as one of the three remaining candidates, alongside M. P. D. Nair and V. K. Nair. He was to contest in the North Ward against incumbent Chong Thutt Pitt of the PP, a solicitor who was also the director of the Sze Hai Tong Bank and who had placed third in April, thus being elected on an eight-month term. Davies's candidacy was officially proposed by SLP president Francis Thomas and seconded by Victor J. Mendis, the party's campaign organiser for December. At his first election speech, as part of a rally held in Farrer Park, he advocated for increased self-governance and proclaimed it his "desire" to see that the middle and lower classes would "[get] the opportunities to improve themselves." At his final election speech, at an SLP rally held on 1 December again in Farrer Park, Davies stated that he wanted to avoid "empty promises" and "glamorous manifestos", instead stating: "Give me a chance and I will prove my worth."
The Singapore Free Press reported on 11 November that the SLP had hopes of Davies and M. P. D. Nair defeating PP incumbents Chong and Duncan Robertson, respectively. Mendis claimed in mid-November was confident of Davies's chances, noting that Pat Johnson, the SLP's only member on the Municipal Commission, had won the same ward, with its electorate largely comprising those in the working class, in April. He also felt that Davies's work as an educator was "well-known". The Straits Times reported at the end of the month that Davies's candidacy was generally considered by observers to be the SLP's "strongest bid" of the season.
Davies won the North Ward seat with 803 votes, a majority of 257 over Chong's 546. This was the SLP's most "clear cut victory" of the night, though only one other LP candidate won their seat; Chisty was elected in the Rochore Ward. M. P. D. Nair, V. K. Nair and Mak lost to PP incumbents while Oehlers lost to an independent. The Malaya Tribune reported that the supporters of both the SLP and the PP "appeared to be quite happy" with the outcome, with Thomas noting that both Davies and Chisty's seats were won by significant margins and that M. P. D. Nair had lost to Robertson by only a very narrow margin of 31 votes.
Municipal Commission (1949–1951) Examinations Committee
Davies and Chisty became the second and third SLP members on the Municipal Commission, joining Johnson, who was now to serve as the leader of the SLP on the commission. They were elected on terms ending in December 1952. Shorly taking office, Davies was placed on the commission's Examinations Committee. With the committee, he proposed altering the upcoming promotion examinations for municipal clerks, to be held in early January, due to the clerks having been informed of the examination on "short notice". He felt that it was unfair for these clerks, many of whom had been out of school for decades, to "take examinations in almost forgotten subjects" so soon, as well as for clerks whose work was more "mechanical" to be tested through essays and summaries. He additionally felt that the clerks, still reeling from the effects of the Japanese Occupation, would feel "overtaxed".
After failing to find support for his proposal among his fellow commissioners on the committee, he instead decided to initiate a motion at the monthly meeting of the Municipal Commission on 30 December. This meeting was, according to The Malaya Tribune, anticipated to be one of the "stormiest sessions" of the commission since the debate on the Pontian Tunnel scheme on 4 July; it was also to comprise a report on the scheme by the Pontian Tunnel Inquiry Committee and a debate on the definition of 'seniority' for employees of the municipality. He suggested that the written exam be replaced with an oral examination instead, accompanied by a report from the clerks' department heads. The motion was defeated, receiving eight votes for and 10 against; its opponents included teachers Frank Caulfield James and Phyllis Eu Cheng Li, both of the PP, and Raffles College Professor of Physics N. S. Alexander, all of whom favoured written examinations to their oral counterparts. The Singapore Free Press opined that the meeting, which ran for six hours without getting to the Pontian Tunnel report, was one of the commission's "longest and liveliest" of the year.
In March 1950, the Bulletin, the organ of the Singapore Municipal Services Union, which represented the clerks, reported that several of the commissioners who had voted against the motion had been swayed by PP commissioner A. P. Rajah's incorrect claim in a meeting that the union had support examination bars on clerks who were "of advanced age". In the same month, he was appointed to a Special Appeals Committee, alongside Alexander, Goh Hood Kiat and George Oehlers, which was to oversee the complaints of over 200 municipal employees on the change in their wages. At the end of July, he was appointed to a special committee to "reconsider" the definition of seniority "in service" and "in status" with regards to the Establishment Board's policy on promoting municipal employees, alongside Yap Pheng Geck, Sandy G. Pillay, C. F. J. Ess and J. V. West. The committee delivered a report in November which found that the board should have promoted based on the officers' suitability "irrespective of the grade or class of his existing appointment or status in the service." A majority of the commissioners voted in favour of this.
Resignation of Pat Johnson