in 1897, and a dinner was held by the Selangor Public Works Department in the building to celebrate its completion. On 4 April 1897, The building was officially opened by Sir Frank Swettenham, the General Resident of the time. A ball was held at the building, and its exterior was floodlit by gas burners, the first time such illumination was used in Kuala Lumpur. The tower chimed for the first time to coincide with Queen Victoria's Jubilee Parade in June 1897 and has chimed since. Extensions The completed structure housed various important government departments during the British administration. The building, simply known as Government Offices in early Kuala Lumpur maps, housed the Federal Secretariat of the then-Federated Malay States (FMS) which was formed in 1896. The entire FMS administration—the Public Works Department, General Post Office, District Offices, Mines Department, Lands, Audit, Treasury, Government Secretariat Offices—was housed there. It also shared its offices with the Selangor State Government. As it was not foreseen when construction began in 1894 that Kuala Lumpur would become the capital of the Federated Malay States, the office space provided was inadequate for the needs of a burgeoning bureaucracy. The FMS government took over the offices that were intended for the Sanitation Board. Other buildings and extensions were then constructed around it. A rear wing was added in 1903, and a building built in the same style was added to the south in 1907 to house the General Post Office. Post-independence Malaya gained independence in 1957, and the Padang or field in front of the Sultan Abdul Samad Building, officially renamed Dataran Merdeka (or Merdeka Square) on 1 January 1990, has become the location for the official celebration of Malayan (later Malaysian) independence since. At Dataran Merdeka, the British Union Jack was lowered for the last time at midnight on 30 August 1957 when the clock started chiming, and the Malayan flag then hoisted for the first time. Celebrations shifted to the Merdeka Stadium in the morning on 31 August with the Declaration of Independence, and Tunku Abdul Rahman became the first prime minister of Malaya. In 1974, all of the State of Selangor Government offices were relocated to Shah Alam, and the various departments of the Federal Government also moved their offices elsewhere. The building was then renamed Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad (Sultan Abdul Samad Building) and renovated. Starting from 1978, the building housed the Court