Benjamin Henry Sheares (12 August 1907 – 12 May 1981) was a Singaporean politician, physician and academic who served as the second president of Singapore from 1971 until his death in 1981. Sheares retired in 1960 and was in private practice before being elected as the president of Singapore by the Parliament after the death of Yusof Ishak, the former president of the Republic, on 23 November 1970. He was sworn on 2 January 1971. Sheares initially wanted to retire after finishing his second term as he felt that he did not have the energy for another term, but Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew persuaded him and Sheares took on his third term. He served as the president of Singapore for three terms from 2 January 1971 until his death on 12 May 1981. Both the Benjamin Sheares Bridge and Sheares Hall at the National University of Singapore are named after him. Early life and education Sheares was born on 12 August 1907 in Singapore to an Eurasian family with an English lineage. He was the second of six children in the family. His father Edwin H. Sheares, an English technical supervisor of the Public Works Department, and raised in the British Raj. Edwin later married Singapore-born Lilian Gómez, of mixed Chinese and Spanish descent, and had six children—the first died in infancy. Life was hard for the Sheares family with the meagre salary that Edwin received from his post. As a young child, Sheares was affectionately known as Ben or Bennie. He was a quiet boy who kept much to himself and loved to play at Peirce Reservoir, where his father worked. He had a close relationship with his sister Alice and often loved to role play doctor with her. On one occasion, he made Alice swallow a one-cent coin as a medical "pill" in their game. Benjamin was six years old then and received a good hiding from his mother Lilian. Throughout his growing years, Benjamin showed ambition to become a doctor—a dream deemed almost impossible for someone who was Asian and came from a poor family in the early colonial days of Singapore. However, Alice continued to spirit him on with that dream, against his mother's wishes for her son to take up a job as a clerk and start helping out with the family bills as soon as he completed his Senior Cambridge Examinations (equivalent to