St. Mark's Church, George Town – History
The Chapel owes its existence to Dr. Richard Hall Kerr.
Born in Dublin, on February 3, 1769 as the elder son of the Rev. Lewis Kerr, he
came from a family that had a long ecclesiastical connection. He graduated from
Trinity College, Dublin in 1788 and after a brief but unsuccessful journey to
America, he returned home to be ordained as a Deacon in 1789. He then embarked
for India, arriving in Bombay on June 5, 1790. A couple of years later, he
desired to return to Ireland, in particular to obtain priestly ordination, for
which he was under age when he had originally left home.
Having embarked on board the ship Perseverance, he found
himself offloaded in Madras owing to his having contracted a fever.
Recuperating at St. Thomas’ Mount, he befriended the Hon. Basil Cochrane (he of
Cochrane’s Canal fame) and at the latter’s advice began work on establishing a
seminary “on a respectable and extensive scale” in Black Town. This was
successful and he came to the notice of Sir Charles Oakley, Governor, who
appointed him a chaplain of the East India Company, to be stationed with the
4th battalion of European Infantry at Ellore.
Arriving in Ellore, Kerr was to discover that the
residents of the place did not have a building for worship and set about
collecting money for the same. Within a short while, a considerable sum was
collected and to this the Government assured him an addition of 1,000 pagodas.
Buoyed by this, Kerr set about the construction of a church. In the interim, he
married Miss Eliza Falconer of Madras, on August 16, 1794. The next year
brought several difficulties – the Board of Directors in London suspended his
appointment, chiefly on the grounds that a Governor of Madras did not have the
powers to issue such orders. This was, however, appealed against by the then
incumbent, Lord Hobart.
In the meanwhile, Mrs. Kerr fell seriously ill and even
while she was recuperating came orders that the troops were to leave Ellore and
so work on the church was to be stopped immediately. This was to leave Kerr
considerably embarrassed financially. But he was saved by an anonymous letter
that contained a gift of 500 pagodas together with the instruction that he
ought not to search for the donor but acknowledge receipt by means of thanks published
in the Madras Courier.
That almost Dumas-esque episode was to be a turning
point. In 1796 came the gratifying news that Dr. Andrew Bell was leaving Madras
and the Government had appointed Kerr to succeed him as the Superintendent of
the Male Orphan Asylum in Egmore. Shortly thereafter came the news that the
Board of Directors in London had relented and agreed to confirming his
chaplaincy. In September 1796, Kerr was appointed Junior Chaplain of
Fort St. George. But the Asylum remained his first love and there, in
1798, he introduced at his expense, a printing press complete with types and
other equipment.
The orphans were trained in this technology and, by
1799, the Orphan Asylum Press was sufficiently well established for the
Government to begin using it. By 1812, long after Kerr was dead, it was
estimated that the Government saved 4,000 pounds annually by contracting its
printing requirements to the Press. A better-known product of the press was the
Madras Almanac, a veritable compendium on the Presidency that it brought out for
years. Many years later the Government acquired the press which moved to Mount
Road, where it functioned for a long time.
The Department of Industries put up its offices on land
fronting the press and that is today the Poompuhar building. The premises of the
erstwhile press were demolished recently to make way for Metro Rail
development. To get back to Kerr, it was in 1796 that he first mooted the idea
that a chapel ought to be built in Black Town. This coincided with a petition
sent in by 100 Christian residents of the area asking for a Protestant Chapel
to be built in the area. Kerr volunteered his assistance and further requested
the Government that its 1,000 pagodas, committed to the Ellore Church but lying
unspent, together with construction materials that he had collected, be
utilized for the proposed chapel in Black Town.
The Government was more than willing and there remained
the matter of selecting a suitable site for the construction. It was Kerr who
went about scouting for land and it was he who eventually zeroed in on the spot
where the chapel now stands. Even though the Government had readily agreed to
part funding a chapel in Black Town, there were some murmurs that the salary of
a regular pastor would be a continuing charge. Kerr allayed these fears stating
that he would minister to the parish free of cost and that this would be in
addition to the time he spent at the Church of St. Mary’s in the Fort.
John Goldingham, Government Astronomer, who would later
design the Banqueting (Rajaji) Hall, planned the church and work began in 1798.
It was completed a year later and on the first Sunday of 1800, the Rev. Kerr
delivered the first sermon there. He would minister to the devout here every
evening thereafter until his passing, except when he was away from the city or
was unwell. In 1802, Kerr proceeded to England to formally receive priest’s
orders from the Archbishop. Returning to Madras in 1803 with a doctorate that
he received from his alma mater in Dublin, Dr. Kerr, as he now was to be known,
formally consecrated the Black Town chapel on February 5, 1804.
He had received a special sanction from the Archbishop
of Canterbury for this. It is interesting to note that there is a black stone
plaque on the church’s gate post today that claims consecration to have been
done in 1805. Dr. Kerr became the senior chaplain of Madras in 1805 and from
then on was a pillar of the church, with his influence being felt in Mysore,
Malabar and elsewhere in Madras Presidency. He repeatedly petitioned the
Government on matters ecclesiastical and also busied himself printing several
Christian tracts, all of which were churned out by the press in the Asylum.
He also interested himself in Freemasonry, joining the
Lodge Perfect Unanimity, which, founded in 1786, is today the oldest surviving
entity of its kind in South India. His career in that Order is not very
edifying for he along with a few brothers from the same Lodge practically
hijacked the workings of the Provincial Grand Lodge, the umbrella body in a
Masonic District to which all Lodges are subordinate.
But it was entirely due to his efforts that the
Freemasons of the city began to donate generously to the Male Orphan Asylum.
Long after his death, the Masons of Madras in 1823 would contribute to a
building for the Asylum in Egmore. They also kept up the practice of awarding
scholarships to deserving students from the Asylum and continued with it long
after the institution was absorbed into the St. George’s School and Orphanage
on Poonamallee High Road.
It is noteworthy that plaques commemorating various
donations by the Freemasons still survive within the school premises. Masonic
interest in St. George’s would cease only in the 1980s. Reverting to Dr.
Kerr, he was laid low by a fever in 1808 and died the same year, on April 15,
which happened to be Good Friday. He was laid to rest in the Black Town chapel.
At present, the Church has very few and services are
conducted only on Sunday mornings. Its best years were clearly in the 19th
Century. John Gantz, who left behind many views of Madras and who ran his famed
lithographic press in Vyasarpadi, was one of the members of this church and
also served as its trustee.
