Chapter 20: Religion
The Anglican Diocese of Hong Kong, which includes Macau, covers nine recognized parish churches and eight mission chapels. In three of these worship is conducted in English, and in the remainder in Chinese. St. John's Cathedral, built in 1847, was established as a Cathedral Church by Letters Patent from Queen Victoria in 1850.
The Anglican Church makes a notable contribution to secondary education in the Colony by administering, among other schools, the Diocesan Boys' and Girls' Schools, St. Paul's College, St. Stephen's Girls' College, and St. Stephen's College, Stanley. During the year St. John's College in the University was formally opened by Sir Kenneth Grubb, C.M.G., President of the Church Missionary Society, on the completion of the first half of the College buildings. One more Chinese parish church was completed, the Church of the Good Shepherd, Hung Hom, and the site for another, the Church of the Holy Carpenter, was levelled by young Christian workers temporarily unemployed. A new primary school was completed, and two more begun, and a start was made on the permanent buildings of Ch'ung Chi College.
The English-speaking Free Churches are represented by the Methodists, who have their own church on Hong Kong Island and a combined church, school, church hall and vocational training centre in Kowloon, and by other denominations grouped together with Union Churches in Victoria and Kowloon. The London Missionary Society, whose chief representative arrived in Hong Kong within a year of the Colony's cession to Great Britain, plays a prominent part in education and medicine, and runs the Nethersole Hospital, one of the Colony's foremost medical institutions.
The Anglican and Free Churches have a Council of Churches for such common action as may be needed, and the Churches have been able to make some contribution to refugee housing, child welfare centres, outpatient medical assistance, and religious work in the prisons.