Fairfield Methodist Secondary School
| Fairfield Methodist Schools | |
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| Location | |
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100 & 102 Dover Road, Singapore 139648 1°18′0.511″N 103°47′6.785″E / 1.30014194°N 103.78521806°ECoordinates: 1°18′0.511″N 103°47′6.785″E / 1.30014194°N 103.78521806°E |
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| Information | |
| Type | Government-Aided (Both); Autonomous (Sec only) |
| Motto | Pure and Honest |
| Religious affiliation(s) | Methodist |
| Established | 4 August 1888 |
| Session | Single (Day) |
| School code | 5020; 7309 |
| Principal | Mdm Law Li Mei (Primary); Ms Audrey Chen (Secondary) |
| Age range | 6 to 12; 12 to 16 |
| Enrolment | Approx. 1,500 (Primary); Approx. 2,000 (Secondary) |
| Song | School Hymn |
| Website | http://www.fmsp.moe.edu.sg; http://www.fairfieldsec.org/ |
100 & 102 Dover Road, Singapore 139648
Fairfield Methodist School (Primary) (abbreviation: FMS(P)) and Fairfield Methodist School (Secondary) (abbreviation: FMS(S)) are two schools located on Dover Road. Founded in 1888 as the Anglo-Chinese Girls School, they are among the oldest primary and secondary schools in Singapore. Their current premises are at the neighbourhood of Dover in Queenstown, Central Singapore.
Miss Sophia Blackmore, a 32-year-old Australian missionary from the Methodist Women's Foreign Missionary Society, had just established her first school in Singapore. Meanwhile, several influential Chinese families were persuading her to teach their daughters. A widow later offered Blackmore her home along Cross Street for teaching.
On August 1888, the Anglo-Chinese Girls' School began with just eight Peranakan girls.
However, there have been conflicting and differing stories on how the school really started, especially from the history book, Singapore: A Biography.
According to the sources, Fairfield was started in August 1888 by Miss Sophia Blackmore, a 31 year old missionary from the Methodist Mission. Her mandate in 1888 was to start a girls' school in Singapore in an enclave called Telok Ayer. She finally managed to start a class for eight Nonya girls in a little room at Cross Street. During that time, education for girls was definitely not favoured by the early traditional Chinese immigrants, even among the liberal-thinking Baba merchants. Miss Blackmore then started going house to house, trying to persuade families to enroll their girls in her school. However, little by little, they suspected that she was a government spy sent to catch them secretly gambling at cards. They had started to pass the word that the young missionary lady was in fact a 'mata-mata' agent who was helping the British government enforce its new law against gambling.
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Wikipedia