Hudson Memorial Church, Bengaluru

The earliest record of Kannada missionaries preaching in the Bangalore Petah area is in 1822. These missionaries were from the Wesleyan Mission and London Missionary Society. They started schools around the petah in 1825. The church has its origin at the Wesleyan Mission School with a chapel in its premises, which existed between 1840 and 1849. The Wesleyan pastors who were active at this time were John Garret (who translated the Bhagavad Gita into Canarese), Edward Hardy, John Gastec, Philip Webber and Daniel Sanderson (who along with Rev. Reeve of the LMS, compiled the first English Canarese dictionary). During this time Kannada church services were help at the Wesleyan Mission School and the chapel. Records of baptisms in this period exists at the Hudson Memorial Church. In 1857, the first native Kannada preachers joined the Wesleyan Mission, with the first pastor being Andrew Philip. showing the location of the Wesleyan Canarese Chapel The church's predecessor was the Wesleyan Mission Canarese Chapel (not to be confused with the London Missionary Society Canarese Chapel, now Rice Memorial Church on Avenue Road), which was established in 1859 at Gaanigarapet (now Nagarethpet). Prior to that the site was used as a Wayside Chapel from 1856 to 1859. The chapel was built in a narrow street of Gaanigarapet or Main Street, which is the present Nagarethpet. The chapel was surrounded by Gangamma Halli, Ballapuradapete, Potter's Street and Chakkaliyarugala Halli. Known by the natives as Gudi Hatti or Peta Chapel, the church faced much opposition from the locals, and often church services had to be conducted with police protection. The chapel was used for nearly 45 years. The pastors who served the Peta Chapel were Robert William Faradize, Abijah Samuel, Josiah Hudson, J A Vanes and T Luke. Of these Josiah Hudson was a prominent Wesleyan pastor, who has local pastors Samuel Abijah and T Luke serving under him. By 1904, the small chapel could not accommodate its 250 members and hence a need rose to build a new bigger church. In 1900, Rev J A Vanes, a Wesleyan missionary of the purchased the present church land, and a new stone church building was constructed and named after Rev. Josiah Hudson, a Wesleyan missionary and pastor of the Canarse chapel, who helped start many schools in the Bangalore Pete area (not to be confused with Thomas Hodson, another Wesleyan Missionary who helped establish the first Wesleyan Canarese Chapel in 1856). ==Wesleyan Canarese Mission==

File:A Bazar, or Shop, in One of the Principal Streets of Bangalore (p.97, 1856) - Copy.jpg|thumb|right|280px|A Bazar, or Shop, in One of the Principal Streets of Bangalore (p.97, 1856) ==Wesleyan Wayside Canarese Chapel, 1856==

Thomas Hodson in 1856, describes Bangalore as consisting of two parts - the Cantonment where the soldiers lived and Tamil was primarily spoken, and the Old Town (Petah) where Canarese was the main language. In both parts a total of 130,000 Indians lived. File:Bangalore, East Indies - Wesleyan Wayside Preaching-Place (Thomas Hodson, p.72, July 1857) - Copy.jpg|thumb|280px|Wesleyan Wayside Canarese Chapel at the Bangalore Petah (1856) The sketch of the Wesleyan Wayside Canarese Chapel appeared in the July 1857 issue of the 'Wesleyan Juvenile Offering' magazine. ==Canarese Wesleyan Chapel, 1859==

(1859) File:New Canarese Wesleyan Chapel, Bangalore (January 1860, p.2, XVII) - Copy.jpg|right|thumb|280px|New Canarese Wesleyan Chapel, Bangalore (January 1860, p.2, XVII) - Copy.jpg ==Hudson Memorial, 1904==

, 1791. (The memorial was vandalised on 28 October 1964) The congregation of the Canarese Wesleyan Chapel soon grew to 250, and the present building was congested. Hence a need rose to look for a large plot of land to build a bigger church. At the time, a certain Dr. Aayachamma who was related to Dr. Arokyam Pillay, sold the land of present church to Rev J A Vanes on 19 January 1900, for INR 2000. The church was consecrated on 23 September 1904, Friday 4PM, in memory of the Josiah Hudson by his daughter Mrs. Thorp from Mysore. The first service was conducted by Hudson's son-in-law W H Throp. The first sermon was delivered by Rev E P Rice of the London Missionary Society, under the header 'Put off thy shoes form thy feet for the place where thou standest is a holy ground'. The consecration service was attended by around 600 people, and offering of INR 400 was collected. A public meeting was presided by D A Rees of the Wesleyan Mission. G W Sawday and T Luke addressed the gathering in Canarese and H Guildford in English. The events were closed with a prayer in Tamil by Fred Goodwill. The cost of building the church was INR 25000, raised by contributions. The Century Fund Movement contributed INR 5276, Christians from the province INR 528, missionaries and friends INR 4429, The Maharani of Mysore contributed INR300 and the Dewan of Mysore INR200. ==Architecture==

The church is stone building in the Gothic architecture with no intervening pillars. The building could now hold 500 people. The architect of the building was J H Stephen, who also donated the circular glass over the door. The communion table, pulpit, reading desk chairs were carved from teak at the Industrial School at Karur. The marble floor of the chancel was donated in the memory of Mrs. Vanes. An anonymous donor contributed towards the church bell. The pipe organ was donated by Mr. Darling. The Bible and hymn books were donated by Mr. and Mrs. Throp. At that time, the land was surrounded by fields, gardens and ponds, and the Gothic structure in midst of these was an imposing view. ==Restoration==

The church underwent extensive restoration at around the year 2000. The restoration work was conducted under the Chairmanship of then Presbyter in charge Late. Rev. P. K. Simon John & also is recorded by Late Ronnie Johnson, as appeared on his blog, in form of many photos taken during the restoration. ==110 Years Celebrations==

The Hudson Memorial Church, Bangalore, celebrated its 110 years on 23 September 2013. The Chief Minister of Karnataka Siddaramaiah and the Home Mister K J George were supposed to be attendance, however could not make it. On this occasion, several people travelled from far to be a part of this ceremony. M S Ramanujan, the Chief Post Master General, Karnataka Circle, released a stamp to commemorate the 110 years of the church. Events such as Ikebana, painting and choreography were held. Meritorious students from the church were given scholarships and awards. ==Controversies==

In 2012, the Deccan Herald reported that a police complaint had been filed in the Ulsoor Gate Police Station, against the secretary, pastorate committee members and management committee members of the Hudson Memorial Church, alleging breach of trust leading to financial losses for the church. In 2010, a cheating case was registered in the same police station against a church member for alleged cheating. ==List of presbyters (from 1904)==

• Rev D A Rees 1904 • Rev H Premaka 1904 – 1905 • Rev W E Tomlinson 1905 – 1906 • Rev Brockbank 1906 – 1907 • Rev Andrew Philip 1907 – 1910 • Rev John Mark 1911 – 1912 • Rev D Sathyaveeriah 1912 – 1914 • Rev E S. Edward 1915 – 1916 • Rev B A. Amrit 1917 – 1921 • Rev G Wesley 1922 – 1923 • Rev D Bankapur 1923 – 1925 • Rev B A. Amrit 1926 – 1930 • Rev D Guruputra 1931 – 1933 • Rev Thomappa 1934 – 1936 • Rev J Bhaktishiromani 1937 – 1944 • Rev P Gurushantha 1945 – 1947 • Rev Victor Karl 1947 – 1949 • Rev V Benjamin B D 1950 – 1953 • Rev M Ananda Murthy 1954 – 1956 • Rev G Yesuvanuja 1956 – 1963 • Rev G Somasundara 1963 – 1974 • Rev Benjamin Dorai Raj 1974 – 1981 • Rev S A Salins 1981 – 1982 • Rev G Somasundara 1982 – 1983 • Rev D Sundara Raj 1983 – 1986 • Rev Chandrasekar Soans 1986 – 1989 • Rev Karunakara 1989 – 1990 • Rev Olvin Prabhakar 1990 – 1992 • Rev A P Ranjan 1992 – 1993 • Rev Edwin Vinod Kumar 1993 – 1996 • Rev P K Simon John 1996 – 2001 • Rev M M George 2001 – 2006 • Rev Olvin Prabhakar 2006 – 2011 • Rev V P Ashwal 2011 – 2013 • Rev William Jones 2013 - 2015 • Rev. Solomon Thomas 2015- ==Wesleyan Mission Press==

The Wesleyan Mission Press, located in the Bangalore Petah is credited with printing and publishing some of the earliest printed material in Canarese. Some of these works were • A Dictionary, Canarese and English, by Rev. W Reeve, revised and enlarged by Daniel Sanderson, 1858 • A Grammatical Volcabulary in English and Canarese, by M Ramasamy, 1858 • An Elementary Grammar of the Kannada or Canarese Language, by Thomas Hodson, 1864 • Dialogues in Canarese, by Munshi Shrinivasiah, English Translation by Richard G Hodson, Revised by Rev. Daniel Sanderson, 1865 • English and Canarese Vocabulary of Familiar Words with Easy Sentences, 1864 • Katha Sangraha (Canarese Selections), by Daniel Sanderson, 1865 • The Seventy Stories in Canarese, 1860 (A series of progressive lessons in Canarese) ==Sketches==

A photo of the Hudson Memorial Church, from the Fred Goodwill collection, dated early 20th century, cannot be displayed here due to licensing issues. Can be viewed at the below link • Image 1: Hudson Memorial Church, Bangalore == See also ==