CHURCHES (1)
Continuation.
Bishop G. Smith arrived in March 1850, and he consecrated the Cathedral in the following September.
Bishop Smith was succeeded in 1867 by Bishop Alford who was followed by Bishop Burdon in 1874 and Bishop Hoare in 1898.
The foundation stone of the new Chancel was laid on November 16, 1869, by H. R. H. the Duke of Edinburgh.
The stained Clerestory windows in the Chancel were the gift of Lady Jackson: a memorial window erected by the executors of the late Mr. Douglas Lapraik in the Seventies.
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The bells of St. John's Cathedral were donated by a former resident of the colony. This was the Hon. Mr. F. Parry, and the peal was rung for the first time on New Year's Eve, 1869.
In 1858, the cost of the Cathedral's organ was raised by public subscription, and arrangements were made for the services of a first-class organist. As a result, Mr. C. F. A. Sangster came out from Home in 1860, and he conducted the Cathedral choir for 35 years with much success.
The Cathedral possesses some interesting old records, part of which deal with the allotment of seats to prominent civilians and to the Naval and Military bodies. Similar records are on file in the Navy and Army archives, chiefly correspondence that had passed on the subject. Professor Forster of Hongkong University recently published some amusing extracts from the Cathedral records on this matter of seat allotments, which, however, are not without their historical value.
In writing about St. John's Cathedral, the other mention was made of the movement in the beginning of the Colony's ecclesiastical history to found a Union Church for both Anglican and Nonconformists. This was not officially approved, and St. John's Cathedral was eventually built and opened in 1849, thus being the oldest place of worship in the Colony, all the other religious edifices of the early days having been demolished at some time or other and re-erected. Anglican services, it has also been shown, were held in a mat-shed church in 1843. The services there commenced in June that year, conducted by Naval Chaplains. The Union Church idea, however, even though no Government building was sanctioned for the purpose, was maintained from those early days, and thus the Union Church in Hongkong is probably the oldest founded Protestant institution in the colony. Its ninetieth anniversary was celebrated earlier this year.
In 1843 the first Union Church meetings for worship were held in the house of Dr. James Legge, of the London Missionary Society, one of the five Protestant missionaries who produced a new Chinese translation of the Bible, known as the Delegates Version. A Union Chapel in connection with the London Mission was built in 1844. One record states that it was built on the present Hollywood Road, in spring 1845. The Church records make the date 1844, and the site Wellington Street.