David Marshall (Singaporean politician)

David Saul Marshall (né Mashal; 12 March 1908 – 12 December 1995) was a Singaporean lawyer, politician, and diplomat who served as the first chief minister of Singapore from April 1955 to June 1956. He resigned after just over a year into his chief ministership after his delegation to London regarding negotiations for self-governance was rejected by the British.

Marshall was born in colonial Singapore to Jewish parents and studied at Saint Andrew's Secondary School and Raffles Institution. He held down different jobs from 1926 to 1934, eventually saving up enough money to study law at the University of London. He returned to Singapore in 1937 to begin his law practice. In 1938, Marshall began volunteering with the Singapore Volunteer Corps. Following the surrender of Singapore, Marshall was made a prisoner-of-war (POW) and interned at Changi Prison before being sent to Japan to do manual labour. He returned to Singapore in 1946 after the Japanese's surrender. He then joined the Singapore Association, which merged to form the Progressive Party (PP) to contest in the 1948 general election. Following disputes with the PP and its leader C. C. Tan, Marshall left in 1953 and would be a part of the creation of the Labour Front (LF), serving as its first chairman. The LF contested at the 1955 general election, where they won the most seats with 10, and Marshall was named the chief minister as the LF's leader.

Marshall's chief ministership was marked with strikes and riots, a constitutional crisis, and internal problems with the LF. His main goal was gaining self-governance for Singapore, and he led a delegation to London in 1956 to hold constitutional talks with British authorities. However, the constitutional talks would break down and he subsequently resigned as chief minister after having promised to do so, had he not managed to achieve self-governance. He remained a backbencher and was succeeded by Lim Yew Hock. Marshall then resigned from the LF and the Legislative Assembly in 1957, and founded the Workers' Party (WP) to contest in the upcoming 1959 general elections. At the 1959 general elections, he lost to Lim, but won Anson at the 1961 by-elections. Marshall would resign from the WP following internal arguments, and later lost his seat at the 1963 general election.

Following this, Marshall left politics and returned to law. In 1978, Marshall became a diplomat at the invitation of foreign minister S. Rajaratnam and was Singapore's inaugural ambassador to various countries, including France, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland. During this time he defended Singapore's interests abroad, despite his old political opponent Lee Kuan Yew of the People's Action Party having long led the government as prime minister. Nevertheless, he publicly maintained constructive criticism of some domestic policies with which he disagreed. Marshall retired in 1993 and died two years later in 1995, at the age of 87.