CATHEDRAL, SINGAPORE.
Plate XVI.
As the late General Man had for this purpose the erection of the permanent jail, so the late Colonel Macpherson planned and laid the foundations for execution by their labour of St. Andrew's Church, now the cathedral of the diocese; while to Major McNair fell the duty of designing and constructing almost wholly by these convicts the house for the Governor of the colony.
Cathedral[10] (see [Plate XVI].).
In preparing the designs of this ecclesiastical edifice, Colonel Macpherson had to select as simple and easy a form of architecture as he could, and with as little ornament as possible, and therefore within the capacity of his workpeople; so he chose the Gothic, or rather, we should say, the Early English style of about the 12th century, and in so doing he said he had somewhat reproduced the character of old Netley Abbey.[11] He laid the foundations, and saw it built up to about three feet above the ground, and then left for Malacca to take up the appointment of Chief Civil Officer there, and was therefore not able further to see the progress of the work that he had inspired. His plans, however, were carefully followed by his successor, with the exception, as has already been said, of substituting a spire for a tower, owing to undue settlement at the tower end. This building is 250 feet long internally, by 65 feet in width, with nave and side aisles; or, with the north and south transepts, 95 feet, the transepts being used as porticoes. The simple columns, with plain mouldings only, carried arches, on which rested the side walls of the nave, which were run up of sufficient height to clear the roofs of the aisles, and were perforated by a range of windows to admit light to the whole building. At the north-east end of the nave was a great arch leading into a chancel, and an apse with three lancet windows in stained glass. The building was roofed with teak timber, with a sarking of lighter wood as a lining to form a contrast, and then covered with slates imported from England. Over the main entrance is a vaulted dome, with a neat piece of groining in granite, also made by the convicts. Leading to the organ loft is a circular well staircase, made from quarter-inch plate iron, the treads and risers punched with holes by the punching machine in the work yard to render them lighter. They were bracketed together, and secured by screw bolts and nuts. The risers were bent round a two-inch bar of round iron, which passed down through all of them at the centre from top to bottom of the staircase. The whole was made and fixed in its place by the convicts.
As a pattern for the convicts to follow, we built two arches on the ground, the exact counterpart of those in the building; and, indeed, at any time when they wanted a guide, we had a model made; and the natives of India are such wonderful imitators, as we all know, that they soon were able to follow the copy we had given them. So the work progressed from day to day, until it was ultimately finished in 1862. We found that the skill of the convicts never failed them, and their capacity as builders and carpenters never seemed to slacken.
In dealing with the interior walls and columns, we used what is well known, though little employed with us in England, "Madras chunam," made from shell lime without sand; but with this lime we had whites of eggs and coarse sugar, or "jaggery," beaten together to form a sort of paste, and mixed with water in which the husks of cocoanuts had been steeped. The walls and columns were plastered with this composition, and, after a certain period for drying, were rubbed with rock crystal or rounded stone until they took a beautiful polish, being occasionally dusted with fine soapstone powder, and so leaving a remarkably smooth and glossy surface.
We have given the dimensions of this building, but we may remark that, owing to the simplicity of its tracery and mouldings, it really appears much larger than it actually is, and being built on an open space, its proportions at once strike the eye of every visitor to the colony.
A peal of bells was added to the cathedral in 1889 by the munificence of Mr. W. H. Read, C.M.G., who, with the late Mr. John Crawfurd, Mr. James Guthrie, and others, was instrumental in bringing about the transfer of these settlements to the Crown, and some of their portraits are now in the Town Hall, including that of Mr. Thomas Scott, then M.L.C.