Smith Memorial Congre-gational Church celebrates its 172nd anniversary this month and will hold a service on Sunday, November 15 to mark the occasion. The public worship service starts at 09:00 hrs.
The church, which stands resplendent on Brickdam, Georgetown was erected to the memory of Reverend John Smith, a London Missionary Society minister, who was sentenced to die by hanging for his alleged role in the notorious East Coast Demerara (ECD) slave insurrection of 1823.
He died while a prisoner on February 6, 1824, before a pardon arrived from London and subsequently came to be known as the ‘Demerara Martyr’, because of the circumstances surrounding his death.
Smith arrived in Demerara in February 1817, to succeed the Reverend John Wray at Bethel Chapel, Le Ressouvenir, ECD. Like his predecessor Wray, Smith gave instruction to the slaves.
He taught them to read the Bible and Catechism. He, Wray and the early missionaries laid the foundation for organized schooling and elementary primary education for their congregations.
Quamina, a slave, was senior deacon at Bethel Chapel and the nominal leader of the uprising. His son Jack Gladstone was probably the real leader. Many slaves suffered death for their alleged roles in the uprising which had as its goal, freedom of the slaves.
On November 24, 1843, exactly 20 years after the date on which the Reverend John Smith was sentenced to death, Smith Memorial Congregational Church was opened as a tribute to the work and suffering he had to endure on behalf of his deacons, members and other followers.
