About Church of the Good Shepherd

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   By the end of the 1830s, the chapel had become too small. Bishop Jean-Paul-Hilaire-Michel Courvezy, Vicar Apostolic of Siam, considered extending the chapel but was persuaded by the newly arrived Parish Priest, Father Jean-Marie Beurel, to keep the site for a school and to build a church elsewhere. The Governor, George Bonham, offered a site on the slopes of Government Hill, now Fort Canning, but this was turned down by the Bishop. The second offer of land was a site bounded by Victoria Street, Bras Basah Road and Queen Street and was conveniently located near the proposed school, later to be Saint Joseph's Institution. This site was accepted. In 1840, a subscription drive was started whereby Queen Marie-Amélie Thérèse of France and the Archbishop of Manila contributed 4,000 francs and about 3,000 Spanish dollars respectively. The Government Surveyor, John Turnbull Thomson, had prepared the first design for the church, but it was considered too expensive to build and difficult to maintain. The design that was accepted was that by Denis Lesley McSwiney, a design that was said to owe much to George Drumgoole Coleman's original Saint Andrew's Church. Charles Andrew Dyce designed the steeple which was modelled on John Turnbull Thomson's design for the second Saint Andrew's Church. On 18 June 1843, the cornerstone for the church was blessed by Bishop Jean-Paul-Hilaire-Michel Courvezy, Vicar Apostolic of Malacca-Singapore, and was laid by John Connolly, a merchant. On 6 June 1847, the completed church was blessed and opened by Father Jean-Marie Beurel. The total payments amounted to 18,355.22 Spanish dollars.

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