St. Paul's Church, Bangalore

St. Paul's Church is located in the corner of Old Poor House Road, and Bowring Hospital Road, next to the Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, Bangalore Cantonment, India. St. Paul's has the distinction of being the very first Tamil Anglican Church in the erstwhile Mysore State. St. Paul's celebrated its 175th anniversary in May 2014. Like most old churches of Bangalore, the congregation of St. Pauls is spread all across Bangalore.HistoryRev. George Trevor (1809-1859), Chaplin, East India Company, re-established the Church of England Bangalore Tamil Mission, which was originally found by Rev. William Thomas in the early 19th century. Rev. Trevor, supervised a schoolmaster and a Catechist of the Tamil mission. The native Tamil congregation worshipped at the St. Mark's Church, with the Tamil services being conducted by the Catechist. The christening and the baptisms of the Tamil converts were also recorded in the registers of St. Mark's. Rev. Trevor, took an active part in missionary work, in spite of his heavy civil and military duties as Chaplin of the East India Company in Bangalore, with him personally baptising many new native converts. However, the Government of Madras, raised objections of the use of the registers of St. Mark's (which was a then a Company church), as it gave the impression that the Government was involved in converting the natives. Rev. Trevor then contacted Sir. Mark Cubbon, the then Chief Commissioner of Mysore, and was able to obtain a site in the Bangalore Civil and Military Station for a church and school for the native Tamil congregation, and raised funds to build the same.