Right Revd. George Frederick Hose, D.D.
Bishop of Singapore and Sarawak, 1881-1908.
With portrait.
Bishop Hose was born in 1838 (September 3rd) and was educated privately and at St. John's College Cambridge. He held the Curacy of Roxton, Beds., 1861-1865, and was ordained Priest in 1863. He was at first curate of Holy Trinity, Marylebone 1865-1868, and married Emily, daughter of J. Kirby, R. C. S., H. E. I. C., in 1867. He became Chaplain of Malacca in 1868 till 1873, and Chaplain of Singapore in 1873, becoming Archdeacon of Singapore in 1874 till 1881. He was consecrated Bishop of Singapore, Labuan and Sarawak on Ascension Day, 1881, in Lambeth Palace Chapel by Archbishop Tait assisted by 7 other Bishops amongst whom was Bishop McDougall, the Pioneer Bishop of Sarawak, a contemporary of Sir James Brooke. He was the third Bishop of Sarawak and first of Singapore, and his jurisdiction comprised the Straits Settlements, Java, Labuan and North Borneo with spiritual superintendence over the English Congregations in the Malay Archipelago and Siam.
The Bishop at the time of his retirement in 1908 had thus been a Minister of the Church of England for nearly 50 years. He had served 40 years in the Far East, and for the last 27 years of that period as Bishop over a widely scattered and then little known area. Previous to his arrival as a Chaplain the Straits Settlements had been part of the See of Calcutta and the Bishop of Calcutta used to visit Singapore and Penang about once in 5 years. There were 3 Chaplains one at each station—3 churches, and practically no native congregations attached to the Church of England. The Cathedral Church in Singapore had then been recently completed (1861).
