Diocesan Girls' School Church in 1890s | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Diocesan Girls' School Church in 1890s

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Submitted by jill on Mon, 2013-03-18 07:47

I'd be grateful to know if the Diocesan Girls' School was associated with a particular church in the 1890s. I'm looking for a marriage record of my grandmother, who attended the school, and also a christening record of her first child. Her subsequent children were baptised into the Catholic church, as my grandfather converted to the Roman Catholic faith. I have already eliminated St John's.

Jill

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Submitted by tngan on Mon, 2013-03-18 10:20.

Hi Jill,

According to the School's Vision & Mission Page it was founded by the Anglican (Episopalian) Churgh. 

Best Regards,

T

Submitted by jill on Mon, 2013-03-18 18:44.

Thanks tngan.  Would the school have mainly attended the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kowloon in that case? I will use the email address on the the Vision & Mission page to ask. Any other ideas welcome.

Best wishes

Jill

 

Submitted by David on Mon, 2013-03-18 21:41.

Hi Jill,

I don't have a direct answer, but a couple of other suggestions for people that might know.

One is the DGS Old Girls Association, who may be able to put you in contact with Old Girls who have taken an interest in studying the school's history:

http://www.doga.org.hk/

Next, Wikipedia shows a connection between the school and the London Missionary Society (LMS), see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocesan_Girls'_School

There's an archive of LMS records in London. Bit of a long shot, but maybe they'd have something related to your search:

http://www.mundus.ac.uk/cats/4/251.htm

Regards, David

Submitted by jill on Tue, 2013-03-19 08:40.

Many thanks David. I will follow up these leads.

Best wishes,

Jill

Submitted by richardwonghk on Wed, 2013-03-20 02:43.

According to the record of DBS, DBS boys went to St Peter's Church and St John's Cathedral on Sunday. DGS girls in Rose Lane in 1890s may probably go to St Peter's Church and St John's Cathedral. DGS girls in Kowloon go to St Andrew's Church for worship.

 

Submitted by jill on Wed, 2013-03-20 08:21.

Thank you for finding out this information, Richard. Interesting that the schools attended both St Peter's and St John's. I gather the DGS didn't move to Kowloon till 1913. I wonder whether the 1890s marriage and christening record of St Peter's on Praya West would have been preserved somewhere. I believe that particular church no longer exists.

Best regards

Jill

Submitted by richardwonghk on Wed, 2013-03-20 09:23.

St Peter's Church (1871-1953) was built for sailors and I think it is not suitable for girls. The Christ Church in Kowloon Tong is inherited from St Peter's Church. There were problems between Union Chapel and British Sheng Kung Hui that time. DGS and DBS are established by bishop of Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (SKH). St Stephen's Church of SKH in Possession Point was used for Chinese.  Therefore, DGS girls in 1890s may probably go to St John's Catheral.

Submitted by David on Wed, 2013-03-20 22:28.

I've made a Place for St Peter's Church at:

http://gwulo.com/node/15293

From Richard's notes, maybe Christ Church would know about the old records from St Peters?

Regards, David

Submitted by jill on Thu, 2013-03-21 07:47.

Thank you Richard and David. Certainly might be worth trying Christ Church Kowloon, if it is the heir to St Peters. I have not found any record of my family in the 1890s St John's records. I see from Patricia Lim's 'Forgotten Souls' that "seats were carefully allotted from front to back depending on status and wealth until well into the twentieth century" (p. 85). As my grandfather arrived in the Colony with little money in the 1890s, I can't see that St John's would have been his church of choice either to worship or to get married, even if his ex-DGS Eurasian bride had attended as a schoolgirl. His later conversion to the Roman Catholic church "where a lower-ranking congregation joined together in no particular order" according to Lim, may have partly been a reaction to the St John's snobbery. I don't even know if St John's was open to conducting marriages between Europeans and Eurasians in the 1890s.

Regards

Jill