Completed in 1928, the former Fullerton Building housed Singapore’s General Post Office (GPO), several public offices, the Singapore Chamber of Commerce and the exclusive Singapore Club. As the main tenant, the GPO featured advanced postal technology including motorised belts to ferry mail, and an underground tunnel connecting the post office to the pier, bypassing the crowded Collyer Quay.
Prior to the development of the building, the site was occupied by Fort Fullerton. During the fort's expansion in the 1840s, a historic stone monolith (known today as Singapore Stone) inscribed with Singapore’s earliest known written record was destroyed, as it stood at the river mouth near the fort. The fort was demolished in 1873 to make way for Singapore’s first purpose-built post office, which was later replaced by the former Fullerton Building.
During World War II, Governor Shenton Thomas and his wife took refuge at the Singapore Club and it was there that they were informed of the decision to surrender Singapore to Japanese forces. The former Fullerton Building then served as the headquarters for the Japanese military administration during the Japanese Occupation (1942–1945). In the post-war years, the nearby Fullerton Square was a hotspot for lunchtime political rallies targeting workers in the area.
After the war, the building continued to house various government departments till the 1990s. The GPO moved out in 1996 and the building then underwent extensive redevelopment and was transformed into The Fullerton Hotel Singapore, which officially opened in 2001. The building was gazetted as a National Monument in 2015.
