The paper was founded as Singapore's second English-language newspaper by William Napier, Edward Boustead, Walter Scott Lorrain and George Drumgoole Coleman on 1 October 1835 as the Singapore Free Press & Mercantile Advertiser.
Abraham Logan took over the paper in 1846 running the Free Press for the next twenty years.
His brother, James Richardson Logan, ran the Penang Gazette which produced cross-pollination of copy between the two papers and a mutual dislike of the East India Company.
The Free Press, by then edited by Jonas Daniel Vaughan, remained in circulation until 1869 when increased competition from The Straits Times led to its closure.
The Singapore Free Press was bought over by The Straits Times and was revived with its first publication on 15 May 1946, it was published as a daily.