Dato Charles Joseph Pemberton Paglar (1 September 1894 – 9 December 1954) was a Singaporean surgeon, gynaecologist, politician, philanthropist, and leader of the Eurasian community of Singapore.

It is believed that, not long after he was acquitted, Paglar successfully convinced Sultan Ibrahim to support the formation of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) in May 1945.

[1] Orphaned at a young age, he was adopted by Alexander John Francis Paglar, a prominent businessman in Malacca.

He began attending the King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore after receiving the Diamond Jubilee Scholarship.

[2] He served as the medical staff sergeant of the field ambulance unit of the Military Hospital on Pulau Blakang Mati, now known as Sentosa, during World War I.

[1] In the 1920s, he set up a private practice in Joo Chiat and established the Paglar Pharmacy on North Bridge Road.

[1] He was made the personal physician of Sultan Ibrahim of Johor in 1930 after curing an illness that had left the latter bedridden for several months.

[1] His daughter Ethel helped ferry casualties to the hospital before being evacuated to Australia with her husband, Stanley Lee, a Royal Naval Reserve officer.

[8] He also made nearly weekly unescorted trips to the Bahau settlement, travelling through Guerilla-controlled roads, to deliver medical supplies.

[8] On 8 September, Paglar, along with 97 other suspected collaborators with the Japanese in Malaya, including leader of the Chinese community in Singapore Lim Boon Keng, Selangor Supreme Court Judge Yong Shook Lin and the president of the Japanese-established Oversea Chinese Association, Choo Kia Peng, were arrested by the British.

Although several of the detained, including Lim, were released in December and January, Paglar remained in police custody for preliminary inquiries.

On the same day, the treason cases against lawyer S. C. Goho and journalist Abdul Samad bin Haji Ismail were also withdrawn.

Not long after his acquittal, he was approached by Dato Onn Jaafar, who was looking to establish the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) in opposition Malayan Union.

In August 1946, he ran for the position of president of the Singapore Recreation Club but lost to Dr. W. A. Balhetchet, the former Medical Officer in charge of Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

However, following Balhetchet's retirement due to ill health, Paglar was appointed the club's president, a position which he continued to hold until his death in December 1954.

[2] In the early 1950s, he became a founding member of the Adult Education Board, and established a vernacular school on Wing Loong Road to serve the local Tamil population.

[15] In August 1951, he arrived in Manila on a three-week visit to the Philippines and began giving local doctors and officials conferences on tuberculosis.

[8] In 1953, he attended the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, making him the first Malayan to have been present at the crowning of two British monarchs.

[19] Paglar contested the Municipal North-East Constituency seat of the Legislative Council in the 1948 Singaporean general election as an independent.

In July, he criticised the government's decision to evict 20,000 Kampong residents, mainly squatters and farmers, and providing them with compensation but not alternative land and accommodation, calling it "sabotage" and stating that it would destroy the colony's "rice bowl".

[23] He and Dr. W. J. Vickers, then the Director of Medical Services in Singapore, were previously successful in giving the residents an extension of the time for the eviction.

[24] He later suggested that the evicted be resettled in large plots of unused land in Changi, and stated that the cultivation of alternatives to rice, such as millet, should be encouraged.

[29] In March 1952, he suggested that the elections law be amended such that only those born within the colony should be allowed to run for a seat in the council.

[30] In July, he urged the government to register all opium addicts within the colony and to provide them with the drug on a diminishing scale.

[38][39][40][41] He advocated for the provision of "prompt and sufficient relief" to farmers who had been affected by a major flood in Bedok in October 1954.

[2] He married his first wife, Kathleen Shelley Paglar, in January 1919, and she gave birth to their first daughter in December of that year.

He was a close friend of Sultan Ibrahim, who frequently referred to him as "Charlie" and consulted him on matters unrelated to medicine.

[8] Paglar died of a heart attack in his sleep on 9 December 1954 at the Singapore General Hospital, two days after he had suffered a stroke.

[59] Also present were the then-Tengku Mahkota of Johor, several state officials of Johor, various representatives of the Eurasian community of Singapore, Dato Syed Ahmad bin Mohammad Alsagoff representing then-Sultan of Pahang Abu Bakar, senior police officers and members of the Johor Military Forces, then Director of Education R. M. Young, representatives of various sports organisations and the leaders of seven countries participating taking part in the Third Asian Table Tennis Games.

On 18 January 2010, the biography, titled Dr Paglar: Everyman's Hero, was launched by then President of Singapore S. R. Nathan at the Eurasian House in Tanjong Katong.