Established in 1837, the Singapore Institution Library (1837-1844) occupied a single room of the newly completed Singapore Institution. Although primarily a school library with free borrowing rights for students, teachers, and donors of the Singapore Institution Free School, access was free for members of the public. Lending privileges were extended for a fee of 25 cents per month, making it the colony’s first subscription library. Printed within the Free School Management Report for 1842-1843, this catalogue of books indicates that in 1843 the library contained approximately 350 titles or 633 volumes. This is a similar number to the previous 1838 catalogue.
As to be expected for a school library, the books stocked are mostly biographies, travels, histories, geographies, natural histories, and dictionaries, with very few novels (only 3 novels, all by Walter Scott), a copy of Thomas Crofton Croker’s Irish Fairy Tales (1825), and a small number of poetic works by poets such as Dryden, Milton, Congreve, Swift, Pope, and Young. As in the 1838 catalogue, many of the books are part of useful or improving collections considered suitable for families and school children; for example, Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopaedia (147 volumes).
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