Establishment of medical school Tan Teck Guan Building, together with the adjacent
College of Medicine Building, features significantly in the history of
medical education in Singapore. It was the site of Singapore's first
medical school to train local students in
western medicine. In September 1904,
Tan Jiak Kim led a group of representatives of the
Chinese and other non-European communities, and petitioned the
Governor of the Straits Settlements, Sir
John Anderson, to establish a medical school in Singapore. Tan, who was the first president of the Straits Chinese British Association, managed to raise
$87,077, of which the largest amount of $12,000 came from himself. On 3 July 1905, the medical school was founded, and was known as the Straits and Federated Malay States Government Medical School. The
medical library was first housed in the students'
reading room within the school, converted from the vacant old female
psychiatric hospital in
Sepoy Lines. On 23 June 1911, a new building, Tan Teck Guan Building, was added to the medical school. It was built by
Tan Chay Yan, a successful rubber plantation merchant and philanthropist, who donated $15,000 towards its construction. Tan Chay Yan named the building in memory of his late father,
Tan Teck Guan (also known as Tan Teck Gein), who was the son of entrepreneur and philanthropist
Tan Tock Seng. This building served as the medical school's administrative block, containing the principal's and clerk's offices. It also housed the new medical library, a reading room, a lecture room and a
pathology museum. In 1912, the medical school received a donation of $120,000 from the
King Edward VII Memorial Fund, started by Dr
Lim Boon Keng. Subsequently, on 18 November 1913, the name of the school was changed to the King Edward VII Medical School. In 1921, it was again changed to the King Edward VII College of Medicine to reflect its academic status. In 1920, approval was given to build a new building for the medical school. On 15 February 1926, the College of Medicine Building was officially opened by the Governor, Sir
Laurence Nunns Guillemard. With the completion of the College of Medicine Building, the medical school's Department of
Anatomy occupied Tan Teck Guan Building. An extension of the building housed the
dissection room. In 1949, with the foundation of the
University of Malaya, the King Edward VII College of Medicine became the Faculty of Medicine of the university.
Preservation In May 1982, the
Singapore Government decided to move the Faculty of Medicine and School of Postgraduate Studies to the
Kent Ridge campus of the
National University of Singapore, which was formed from the University of Malaya in 1962. In August 1985, the
Preservation of Monuments Board recommended that Tan Teck Guan Building be
preserved, following its decision not to demolish but
conserve the College of Medicine Building in 1983. In May 1984, the Ministry of Health (MOH) obtained approval from the government to restore and renovate both buildings. Renovation works began in November 1985, and were completed in April 1987 at a total cost of
S$14.4 million for the two buildings. In July 1987, MOH moved into Tan Teck Guan Building and College of Medicine Building, together with the
Singapore Academy of Medicine and the College of General Practitioners (now the College of Family Physicians).
National monument 's
commemorative plaque to mark Tan Teck Guan Building as a
national monument. In October 1988, the Ministry of Information and the Arts (now the
Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts) approved the
gazetting of the Tan Teck Guan Building as a
national monument. Tan Teck Guan Building became a national monument on 2 December 2002. In June 2003, the
National Heritage Board installed a
commemorative plaque near the main entrance of the building to mark Tan Teck Guan Building as a national monument. ==Architecture==