Patrick Comerford
The Bishop’s House in Kuching was designed by a German shipwright and built in 1848-1849. It stands on College Hill and is said to be the oldest European building still standing in Kuching.
The Bishop’s House shares the same compound on McDougall Road as Saint Thomas’s Anglican Cathedral, the House of the Epiphany, the diocesan theological college, the diocesan and parish offices, and a multi-purpose hall that is used for funerals and community events.
The Bishop’s House and the bishop’s chapel are not usually open to the public. But when we were visiting the diocesan offices last month, we were also invited to have a private viewing of the chapel.
The Bishop’s House was built soon after Sir James Brooke established himself as the Rajah of Sarawak. College Hill and the surrounding area were given by the Rajah James Brooke in September 1848 to the Revd (later Bishop) Francis Thomas McDougall, the first leader of the Anglican mission in Sarawak, when he arrived in Kuching from England with his wife Harriette at the invitation of the Rajah.
McDougall designed the original residence himself and the house and chapel were built using with local labour and materials, closely supervised by a shipwrecked German shipwright and carpenter, Theodore Auguste Stahl.
Stahl was out of work after the ship he was on was shipwrecked in the Straits of Malacca. McDougall employed him in his passage through Singapore and Stahl’s carpentry and deign skills were invaluable to both the bishop and the rajah in early Sarawak.
At first, the house was known as the Mission House. It also served as a residence for Anglican missionaries, a school, a store, a dormitory with girls’ and matrons’ rooms, and the first dispensary in Kuching with McDougall himself as the doctor.
When the Bishopric of Sarawak was formed in 1855, McDougall became the first bishop and the Mission House became known as the Bishop’s House.
The house was the only building in Kuching that was not attacked during the Chinese Miners’ Rebellion on 18 February 1857, and it provided shelter and safe refuge for a number of Europeans and Chinese converts as the rebel miners rampaged through the town.
Stahl married Elizabeth Richardson, a maid in Harriette McDougall’s household. He taught classes in industry and carpentry in the new school before he returned to Singapore with his wife in 1858 after spending 10 years in Kuching.
The Bishop’s House was originally built of wood. The ground floor was reinforced with brick, mortar and plaster in 1885. It was again renovated in 1912 with the addition of a garage, bathrooms and a porch that was an extension of the sitting room upstairs.
The house has sweeping views over the town and across the river to the Astana, now the official residence of the Governor. Like many other visitors, I could almost imagine the Anglican Bishop and the Rajah of Sarawak, at one time the two most prominent men in Kuching, waving to each other in the morning from afar, or imagine tea parties on the lawn.
The house has undergone some renovations recently. Although it was not carried out strictly according to conservation principles, the house is relatively intact.
Today the Bishop’s House serves as the Anglican bishop’s residence upstairs with his offices, diocesan offices and the bishop’s private chapel on the ground floor. The grounds provide a place of quiet and peace and the majestic and beautiful trees on the hill are of bicentennial vintage.
The Bishop’s House is a private residence and generally it is not open to the public, but the gates are usually open and it is possible to have a discreet look at it most days.
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