Rosary Church is located at 125 Chatham Road South,

Tsim Sha Tsui Tsim Sha Tsui, often abbreviated as TST, is an list of areas of Hong Kong, urban area in southern Kowloon, Hong Kong. The area is administratively part of the Yau Tsim Mong District. Tsim Sha Tsui East is a piece of land reclaimed from the Hu ...

Kowloon Kowloon () is an urban area in Hong Kong comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. With a population of 2,019,533 and a population density of in 2006, it is the most populous area in Hong Kong, compared with Hong Kong Island and t ...

, Hong Kong. It is the oldest

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

in Kowloon.Sally Rodwell. 1991. ''A Visitor's Guide to Historic Hong Kong''. The church is in

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

style; the original plan was based on a Roman

Basilican In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name t ...

model. The church, St. Mary's Canossian College and St. Mary's Canossian School in adjacent belongs to same building cluster. It was classified as Grade II Historic Building in 1990 and it has been a Grade I Historic Building since 2010. Antiquities and Monuments Office
List of the Historic Buildings in Building Assessment (as of 22 March 2011)

History

In 1900, because of the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, some Indian battalions in the British army were stationed in Kowloon; there were about 200 Catholics in the brigade. At the same time, there was an increasing number of Catholics among the civil population. A donation of $20,000 was made in 1903 by Dr. Anthony Gomes, a Portuguese Catholic. Antiquities and Monuments Office
Brief Information on Proposed Grade 1 Items
/ref> so that the church could be built. The foundation stone was laid solemnly by Fr. De Maria, Pro-Vicar Apostolic of Hong Kong on 10 December 1904. The church was designed by

Palmer and Turner P&T Group (), formerly known as Palmer and Turner Hong Kong (Chinese: 公和洋行; "Kung Wo Yeung Hong"), is an architectural firm in Hong Kong. It is one of the oldest architecture and engineering firms in the world, and it has designed many ...

,Dr Dan Waters
"Afterthoughts Regarding the RAS Re-Use Visit to North Kowloon Magistracy"
''

Royal Asiatic Society The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...

Hong Kong Branch Newsletter''. November 2011 and its construction church was completed in 1905, for the population of Catholic was increasing even after the British troops had left.Rosary Church, Kowloon.1996. ''Rosary Church, Kowloon:90th Anniversary Special Bulletin'' On 23 May 1905, the completed church was consecrated to Our Lady of Pompeii, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary; according to the intention of Dr A S Gomes, the benefactor, in loving memory of his parents and brother. During the Second World War, the Church remained untouched by the Japanese army and still could continue its religious services. At that time, the Church was led by the Italian Parish Priest, Horace De Angelis.

References

External links

Official Homepage of Rosary ChurchWebpage of the Bible Readers Association
{{coord, 22.3026, 114.1764, display=title Tsim Sha Tsui East Roman Catholic churches in Hong Kong Grade I historic buildings in Hong Kong Roman Catholic churches completed in 1905