Victor Jerome Mendis (1894 – 15 May 1955), also known as "Pop" Mendis, was a Ceylonese lawyer and politician active in Singapore. Mendis first came to Malaya in the mid-1920s, practising law in Penang. He and his legal partner at the time moved their practice to Singapore in 1932, where he settled. There, he served as the founding president of the Ceylonese Association of Singapore.
Mendis began his political career in 1948 as a founder of the Singapore Labour Party, quickly rising to a prominent position within the party early on in its history and becoming a figurehead of an early faction of the party alongside his then legal partner Pat Johnson. The pair quit the party in 1950 at its annual conference with about a hundred other members over a dispute regarding the means by which party officials were elected, among other aspects of party policy.
He rejoined the party in 1954 as its organising secretary and soon became one of two Labour Party leaders appointed to the three-member governing Executive Committee of the Labour Front on its formation through the merger of the Labour Party and the Singapore Socialist Party. When the Labour Party withdrew from the Front, Mendis remained with the latter and was expelled from the former. He organised the Front's campaign in the 1955 Singaporean general election. The party came into power with the election, with Mendis being credited in part for its victory, and he had a significant role in organising the incoming government, though he died just a month after the election.
Early life and education Mendis was born in the municipality of Moratuwa in British Ceylon in 1894. He was the son of Frederick Mendis, a Ceylonese planter. He grew up with about half a dozen siblings. He received his education and qualified as an advocate in Ceylon. In 1913, Mendis was admitted to The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn in London, through which he was called to the English Bar in 1916.
Career Legal career After he was called to the Bar, he returned to Ceylon, where he practised for some time. There, he was a "contemporary of such well-known legal luminaries" as Herbert Victor Perera, Herbert Sri Nissanka and N. E. Weerasooria.
In March 1925, Mendis arrived in Penang within the Straits Settlements to take over the legal practice of T. Isaac Tambyah. However, as he had yet to be called to the local Bar, H. Ramsay Wilson was to continue with the firm for the time being. Mendis was reportedly "well-known and popular" in Penang and his practice grew "rapidly". He quickly "made a name for himself" as a criminal lawyer. By February 1926, he partnered with lawyer Ong Huck Lim to form Mendis & Huck Lim. Barrister-at-law and Advocate Brumoon Crayin Ahlip, a Ceylon Malay, joined the partnership at the end of 1929 and by Octber 1931 the firm had become Mendis & Ahlip. The year after, the pair decided to move their practice to Singapore. Ahlip went there first, re-establishing the practice at the start of August, and Mendis followed in the middle of the month. The business in Penang was taken over by P. Somasundram. Pat Johnson later joined the firm. Mendis wound up his legal practice in Singapore in the middle of 1952 due to "ill health", though he continued to provide legal advice free of charge. He revived his practice by 1954. Mercy Rajah became a partner in this period.
Social work In 1917, shortly after returning to Ceylon, he was asked by the Social Service League to oversee the work of a group of social workers who would "[clean] up slums" in Colombo on Sundays. After this, he was put in charge of forming the Prisoners' Aid Society of Ceylon in 1920. On the weekends, he would visit prisoners in Colombo on the weekends; his work with them included helping them find employment on their release.
In May 1947, Mendis was elected the president of the newly founded Ceylonese Association of Singapore, which was to "look after the welfare of the Ceylonese of Singapore, particularly in political, social, economic and national matters." It was also to serve as a "liaison" between the local Ceylonese community and the local government, as well as the government of Ceylon. In this capacity, he was an advocate for the improvement of the working conditions of the thousands of Ceylonese troops stationed across Malaya to help in the region's restoration after World War II, aiding and working with them directly. By September, he had secured a plot of land from the government with the intent of erecting a clubhouse for the association. Mendis was also responsible for the formation of the Attap Dwellers' Association, a grassroots organisation which represented those who lived in Attap dwellings across Singapore. During the major floods in late 1954, Mendis aided in the evacuation of those who were stranded in Potong Pasir.
Mendis was appointed an honorary advisor to the Food Ministry of Ceylon by Premier Dudley Senanayake to advise on Siam's food situation. In the same year, Mendis submitted a plan for a vegetable, pig and poultry farm to the Land Office. The project was to add to the country's food supply. To be located in Sembawang, the 30-acre farm was to rear "as many pigs as possible" and 15,000 fowls. The poultry farm was to occupy eight acres. Five acres were to be devoted to the growing of vegetables "on scientific lines." Fruit trees were to be planted on the rest of the compound, which was to be surrounded by an exercise track for horses, accompanied by "spelling and exercising facilities", as well as paddocks and stables, for racehorses, as there was then no place on the island for the resting of racehorses when they were "off colour". He hoped to expand the farm if it was successful. The farm, erected in Nee Soon, was completed in the second half of 1952. In July of that year, he returned to Ceylon to continue as the honorary advisor to the Food Ministry there.
Labour Party 1949 elections Mendis was reportedly a founding member of the Singapore Labour Party (SLP), formed in November 1948 to advocate for workers' rights and actively push for self-governance, by unionists, in particular M. A. Majid, P. M. Williams and M. P. D. Nair, as the second political party in Singapore active in Singapore at the time, after the relatively pro-British Progressive Party (PP), which in contrast advocated for gradual reforms that would eventually lead to self-governance. He did not stand in either of the Municipal Commission of Singapore elections in 1949, though he spoke at the party's campaign rallies for both April and December, which were the first two Municipal Commission elections since 1911. He served as the party's election campaign organiser in the latter cycle, a post which made him one of the SLP's "top leaders". In that capacity, he claimed in November to have expected SLP candidates M. P. D. Nair, Mak Pak Shee and E. V. Davies to win a majority of the votes, though he was less certain on V. K. Nair, F. Bernard Oehlers and S. M. A. H. Chisty's chances. He had been the seconder for Davies, who was contesting in the North Ward.
In response to SLP leader S. S. Manyam's comment that the Progressive Party's (PP) management was "capitalistic", M. P. D. Nair's PP opponent in the South Ward, incumbent Duncan Robertson who was seeking re-election after having been elected to the commission on a seven-month term in April, pointed out that Mendis had "now [decided] it [would] suit his political ambitions" to "adopt trade union ideals" despite not having been a unionist himself. Manyam then noted that Mendis had neither considered himself a unionist nor "deserted the workers for capitalist principles", and that Mendis, while a "sympathiser of Labour", had not actually stood as a candidate in the elections, as he noted Robertson and "several other Capitalists" of the PP were. Robertson then clarified that he had accused Mendis of "adopting, not claiming trade union ideals and labour sympathies for the furtherance of his political ambitions", and noted that while Mendis was not standing as a candidate, he held a "major" post in the SLP, and that his influence "[carried] major weight" in the party. Mendis himself responded to Robertson, pointing to his social work in Ceylon and his work with the Ceylonese troops in Malaya as President of the Ceylon Association of Singapore as the reasoning behind his "labour sympathies". He then proclaimed that he had no intentions of ever standing as a candidate, accusing Robertson of "attempting to mislead the electorate of his Ward."
In the week before the election, Mendis predicted that the ruling PP would have a "great fall" and "meet their Waterloo on Saturday." However, all but two of the SLP candidates, Davies and Chisty, failed to secure a majority in their wards, with three of the four unsuccessful SLP candidates, including M. P. D. Nair, losing to a PP candidate. The Malaya Tribune reported that the supporters of both the SLP and the PP "appeared to be quite happy" with the outcome, with Francis Thomas, then the SLP president, noting that both Davies and Chisty's seats were won by large margins and that M. P. D. Nair had lost to Robertson by only a very narrow margin of 31 votes. Davies and Chisty became the second and third SLP members on the Municipal Commission, joining Mendis's colleague Pat Johnson of the North Ward, a founding member of the SLP who had been elected in April as the first SLP member on the commission for a term ending in December 1951.
Resignation In early 1950, Thomas stepped down as SLP president and went on leave to England. At a party conference in June, Mendis, Majid, V. K. Nair, Johnson and Lim Yew Hock, a unionist and former PP member who joined the SLP in mid-1949, were nominated for election as president. However, Mendis, Nair and Johnson refused to stand for election and Majid withdrew his nomination at the last moment, leaving Lim to be elected president of the SLP unopposed. When Johnson was nominated for election as a vice-president, he walked out of the conference, proclaiming that he "[refused] to stand for any office at all in the Labour Party." He was followed by a crowd which included several prominent members of the party, including Mendis and Mak, and M. P. D. Nair, V. K. Nair and G. Sarangapani were elected the vice-presidents after. Williams was then elected the secretary-general of the party.
Johnson accused the conference proceedings of being "stage-managed" and stated that his confidence in the SLP had been "shaken", choosing to continue as a regular member of the party. He further proclaimed that he would not take any "mandate from a Nominated Unofficial Councillor." According historian Yeo Kim Wah, who cited Williams's account of the event, the "lawyer-group", an early faction of the highly-factionalised SLP led by Johnson and Mendis, had hatched a scheme to elect Mendis as President of the SLP. However, they were countered by Lim and Williams's supporters, the two opposing factions having "joined forces" at the conference, and Lim having "packed" the conference with non-citizen labourers who he had "brought into the party to enable him to capture the party leadership."