Patrick Comerford
I have been in Cambridge all day for the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, where I was student for some years.
Advent begins tomorrow (1 December 2024), and today is Saint Andrew’s Day, which brings my thoughts back to my visit last week to Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, the Anglican cathedral in the centre of Singapore.
Saint Andrew’s Cathedral is linked intimately to the history and development of Singapore and the story of the city’s founder, Sir Stamford Raffles. It is the cathedral of the Diocese of Singapore, which has 27 parishes and more than 55 congregations.
A church has stood on the site since 1836, although the current building was built in 1856-1861. Raffles originally allocated a piece of land between Hill Street and North Bridge Road in his Town Plan of 1822 for an Anglican church. However, due to a lack of funds, it was another 12 years before work began on building the first church.
Initially, Anglicans in Singapore worshipped in a wooden and thatch-roofed mission chapel on the site where Raffles Hotel stands today. The Revd Fred J Darrah, who arrived in Singapore in 1833 as the second residency chaplain, wanted to build a proper church. He called a public meeting on 6 October 1834, and funds were raised to start building a church on the land allocated by Raffles over a decade earlier.
Some sources say the land on which the church was built, between North Bridge Road and Saint Andrew’s Road, was donated by Singapore’s first Arab settler, Syed Sharif Omar bin Ali Al-Junied, a trader and landowner. A substantial portion of the initial funds was raised by the Scottish community. And so, the church was named after Saint Andrew, patron saint of Scotland.
The first Saint Andrew’s Church was designed in the neo-classical style by the Drogheda-born Irish architect George Drumgoole Coleman (1795-1844). The foundation stone was laid on 9 November 1835, the church was built in 1836, and the Revd Edmund White conducted the first service in the church on 18 June 1837.
At the time, Singapore came within the Diocese of Calcutta, and Bishop Daniel Wilson of Calcutta consecrated Saint Andrew’s Church on 10 September 1838.
There were complaints that the church resembled a ‘Town Hall, a College or an Assembly Room’. A spire was added by John Turnbull Thomson in 1842. The church had a bell known as the Revere Bell, named after Mrs Maria Revere Balestier, the wife of the US Consul, Joseph Balestier, who donated the bell in 1843.
However, the spire was built without a lightning conductor and the church was hit by two lightning strikes, in 1845 and 1849. The church was declared unsafe, it was closed in 1852, and it was demolished in 1855.
The construction of a second church was initiated by the then Governor of the Straits Settlements, William Butterworth. Colonel Ronald MacPherson, the executive engineer of Singapore, designed the new church in the Gothic Revival style. MacPherson is said to have been inspired in part by Netley Abbey, a ruined 13th century church in Hampshire, and the piers of the nave of Saint Andrew’s closely resemble the surviving piers at Netley.
The building was finished in Madras chunam, a plaster mixture made from shell lime, egg white, coarse sugar and water in which coconut husks had been steeped. After drying, the plastered walls and columns were polished with rock crystal or rounded stones and dusted with fine soapstone powder, giving the building a remarkably smooth and glossy surface.
The tower was originally designed to be twice the height of the previous tower and without a spire. But during its construction, it was discovered that the foundation might not support such a heavy structure, and a lighter spire was built instead. The plan was also simplified so that it could be more easily built by Indian convict labourers.
Bishop Daniel Wilson of Calcutta laid the foundation stone on 4 March 1856, and after MacPherson was transferred to Malacca, the building was completed by Major John FA McNair, John Bennett and WD Bayliss. The church was completed in 1861, and the first service was held on 1 October 1861. Bishop George Cotton, who succeeded Daniel Wilson as Bishop of Calcutta, consecrated Saint Anrew’s on 25 January 1862.
Three stained glass windows in the apse were dedicated in 1861 to three figures in Singapore’s early colonial history and who are represented on the windows by their coats of arms. The window at the centre is dedicated to Sir Stamford Raffles, the windows on the left to John Crawfurd, the first major Resident of Singapore, and the windows on the right to Major General William Butterworth, the governor who initiated building the second church.
The reredos behind the High Altar depicts the Shepherds at the Nativity. It was designed by Sir Charles Blomfield, made in Italy and crafted in alabaster and mosaic. It was donated in memory of Emily Harriet (Kerby) Hose (1841-1904), the wife of George Hose (1838-1922), Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak (1881-1909) and a former colonial chaplain in Singapore and Archdeacon of Singapore; she died in the Bishop’s House, Kuching, in 1904.
MacPherson is also commemorated in the grey and red granite memorial monument surmounted by a Maltese cross in the grounds, and by the stained glass window over the west door depicting the four evangelists. The gallery at the west end was not part of MacPherson’s plan but was added after the cathedral opened. It has the only decorated elements in the church, with foliated pillars and pilasters, and crocketed arches.
The pulpit was given by a former governor, Sir Cecil Clementi Smith (1840-1916), and was made in Sri Lanka in 1889. Smith was a grandson of the composer Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), who once lived in Lyncroft House, now the Hedgehog Inn in Lichfield, and a nephew of John Clementi, who built Iveragh Lodge in Waterville, Co Kerry, as a shooting lodge in 1858.
The Coventry Cross of Nails is on the wall behind the pulpit. The lectern was a gift of Thomas Shelford and the altar rails were given by the Shelford family.
The Revere Bell was replaced by a chime of bells in 1889, and the Revere Bell is now in the National Museum of Singapore.
Saint Andrew’s Church was transferred from the Diocese of Calcutta to the Diocese of Labuan and Sarawak in 1869, and Archdeacon John Alleyne Beckles consecrated Saint Andrew’s as the cathedral of the new diocese in 1870. The diocese was officially named the Diocese of Singapore, Labuan and Sarawak in 1881.
The Diocese of Singapore, Labuan and Sarawak, but it covered such a large area that it became almost unmanageable. Singapore was made a separate diocese in 1909, covering the Straits Settlements, Peninsular Malaya, Siam (Thailand), Java, Sumatra and adjacent islands, with Bishop Charles James Ferguson-Davie (1872-1963), a former USPG missionary in India, as the first Bishop of Singapore (1909-1927).
The Canterbury Stone, set in a pillar by the lectern and bearing a bronze replica of the Canterbury Cross, was sent from Canterbury Cathedral in 1936.
In the days before Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1942, the cathedral was turned into an emergency hospital. Casualties of the frequent bombings were sent to the cathedral for treatment when the hospitals were overcrowded.
Bishop Leonard Wilson (1897-1970) was Bishop of Singapore (1941-1949) at the outbreak of World War II. He became a Japanese prisoner of war and was held in Changi. Despite his treatment as a prisoner, including torture, he baptised three of his captors.
He later became Dean of Manchester (1949-1953) and Bishop of Birmingham (1953-1969), and is commemorated by a diamond-shape stone plaque in the floor in front of the High Altar in Birmingham Cathedral
Church services in Saint Andrew’s Cathedral resumed after the Japanese surrendered in 1945. A Memorial Hall dedicated to those who died in World War II was added in 1952.
The north and south transepts of the cathedral were originally built as porches for carriages and have been extended to provide halls, meeting rooms and offices: the north transept in 1952, and the south transept 1983.
Saint Andrew’s Cathedral was listed as a Singapore national monument in 1973. Saint Andrew’s Cathedral Choir is the oldest musical institution in Singapore.
Meanwhile, the diocese was renamed the Diocese of Singapore and Malaya in 1960. The diocese was dissolved in 1970 and split into the Diocese of Singapore and the Diocese of West Malaysia.
The Church of the Province of South East Asia, consisting of the Dioceses of Singapore, West Malaysia, Kuching and Sabah, was formed in 1996. Bishop Moses Tay, Bishop of Singapore, became the first Archbishop of the Province.
A project to exted the cathedral began in 2003. The extension, the Cathedral New Sanctuary, was completed in November 2005. It is largely built underground and features a new worship hall within two underground levels of floor space.
The cathedral bells, cast in 1888 by John Taylor & Co of Loughborough, were originally hung as a chime of eight. They were designed for change ringing, but were hung dead due to fears that the tower had unsuitable foundations. However, a survey in 2018 found that the tower was suitable for change ringing, and the first change ringing took place on in 2019.
After more than two years of restoration works, the cathedral nave was reopened and was dedicated last Christmas Eve (24 December 2023) by Archbishop Titus Chung, who has been the Bishop of Singapore since 2020.
Today the Diocese of Singapore has seven area groups made up of 27 local parishes within the Archdeaconry of Singapore and six deanery countries – Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam.
The acting vicar of Saint Andrew’s is the Revd Christopher Chan; the cathedral priests are the Revd Moses Israeli, the Revd Daniel Lim and the Revd Andrew Yap; the assistant priests are the Revd Louis Tay and the Revd Soon Soo Kee; and the deaconesses are the Revd Ti Lian Swan and the Revd June Tan. The cathedral is usually open daily from 7 am to 8 pm.
Saint Andrew’s Cathedral hosts over a dozen services on a typical Sunday. These include the Holy Communion in English at 8 am on Sundays, at 9:30 on the second and fourth Sundays of the month, and at 11:30 on the first, third and fifth Sundays. There are also regular Sunday celebrations of the Holy Communion in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien and Burmese.
