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Presbyterian Mission in Singapore the 1850s to 1870s

Extract from Charles Burton Buckley's An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore 1819-1867, pp. 639-640.

In 1854 the local Presbyterians considered the advisability of having a Minister of the Presbyterian order in Singapore. A committee was appointed, and Dr. Guthrie, the famous Edinburgh preacher, was requested to find a suitable Minister, and the Rev. Thomas McKenzie Frazer, M.A., arrived in October, 1856. In the same year a Chinese catechist named Tan See Boo came from Amoy, recommended by Dr. Carstairs Douglas and other missionaries there. He worked in a small building', used as a Mission Chapel, in the compound of Miss Sophia Cooke's Girls' School in Sophia Road. Miss Cooke took much interest in the matter and had induced Mr. Humphrey, the Church of England Chaplain, to begin mission work among the Chinese some months before the Presbyterians were actually at work. See Boo, who, was one of the earliest Presbyterian converts in China, had been working with the Episcopalians for a time, but was afterwards ordained an Elder in the Presbyterian Church. In September, 1860, Mr. Frazer went to Australia; and in June, 1861, the Rev. John Matheson arrived. He left for home in 1866, and died at Alexandria; having been very much respected in Singapore. The Rev. W. Jeffrey arrived from home in 1866, but not long afterwards he left the Presbyterian communion and joined the Plymouth Brethren in Singapore. Mr. Alexander Grant, M.A., a Presbyterian missionary from Amoy, and Tan See Boo, doing the same. In 1870, the Rev. M. J. Copland, the fourth minister, arrived, but he died suddenly in the following year, on 19th February, 1871.

The Rev. William Dale began his ministry in November, 1871 and in April, 1872, the Presbyterian Church took an important step and entered into the Synod of the English Presbyterian Church. Before that the local Church had had no direct ecclesiastical connection at home.

In May, 1872, as the Session had lost its Chinese Mission by the deflection of Messrs. Grant and See Boo, they decided .to take over for a time Peter Tychicus and the Tamil congregation, and thus became more interested than before in Mr. Keasberry’s Mission. On his death in 1875 the Bukit Timah Chinese Mission passed under the care of the Presbyterian Church, and ten years later the Presbyterians also took charge of the Chinese work at the Prinsep Street Chapel, which since 1885 had been under the charge of the Rev. J. A. B. Cook. Mr. Dale was succeeded by the Rev. W. Aitken, M.A., who left in 1883. The Rev. A. S. MacPhee, M.A., B.D., was then appointed and remained until 1889, when the Rev. G. M. Reith came, and was succeeded by the Rev. S. S. Walker in 1896.

The services were formerly held in the building known as the Mission Chapel, originally built by the London Missionary Society, at the corner' of Brass Bassa Road and North Bridge Road opposite the present Raffles Girls School, and in 1876 that site, which had been purchased by the Presbyterian congregation from the London Missionary Society on 3rd August, 1866, was sold and the present Church in Stamford Road was built, the Government giving the land free for the use of the members of any denomination of Christians holding as their confession of faith the ecclesiastical documents received by the different branches of the Presbyterian Church and known as the Westminster Standard. (639-640)