Places of Worship #7

Today, as promised last week, here is a glimpse of the Edwards Memorial Church, which overlooks the graveyard that started this whole saga. If you want to follow the Richmond Hill story chronologically, hop back to that post, and then read the post on the Synagogue, where the connection between the different elements of the next few posts is set out. Then skip out the New Years Eve and New Year posts, and begin again with the Red Location post, from there you can follow the story through.

This Chapel started out being built by the Congregationalists, and used by the London Missionary Society, to serve their congregation of workers who lived around it, mostly from the Xhosa, Fingo (today called Mfengu) and Basuto tribes. The foundation stone was laid on Feb 13th, 1875. The first minister was Roger Edwards, who came out for the LMS in 1823, and after a lifetime's service around the country, (including accompanying David Livingstone on the beginning of his epic journeys through Africa) retired to Port Elizabeth.

In 1921 the Dutch Reformed Church bought the building and in 1948 the tower was added and extensive renovations carried out.

(In photos taken in the late 1800s, a much simpler structure is seen, here it is on the top of the hill to the right, above the graveyards.)

A new Edwards Memorial Church was built at New Brighton to serve the workers who were relocated there from 1903.