EDITOR -Without wishing to take anything away from the sesquicentennial (150 years) celebrations of St Thomas Church, the illustration you published on 4 July is not of the original church but of a funeral chapel built about seventy years ago.
The first church was an imported wood and iron structure with an unusual beginning. The wife of Admiral Harcourt in England, who was probably a friend of the Rev Rivett of Durban, in 1864 organised the manufacture of a church, perhaps through Frederick Braby & Co.
Strangely this was intended for Congella but as there was no congregation there it was decided to use it on the Berea. The building arrived in packaged sections and was built on the site of the present graveyard which may have been close to the Rev Alan Gardiner’s original mission, Berea.
It was not unlike many iron churches sent from Britain to Australia but this had a timber frame and corrugated iron walls and was designed in a quasi-Gothic style with a tall fleche and triple lancet windows. While it was probably one of the few imported churches in wood and iron, there were many others built and manufactured locally throughout Natal. The church in Musgrave Road replaced it in 1899.
Professor Brian Kearney
Durban
