Church of the Province of South East Asia

Church of the Province of Southeast Asia
Provincial Crest of the Province of Anglican Church in South East Asia
Independence	1996
Primate	Datuk Ng Moon Hing
Headquarters	Singapore
Territory	Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Brunei and Nepal
Members	98,000

The Church of the Province of South East Asia, a member church of the Anglican Communion, was created in 1996, comprising the four dioceses of Kuching, Sabah, Singapore and West Malaysia. The current Metropolitan Archbishop is the Bishop of West Malaysia, the Most Reverend Datuk Ng Moon Hing.

Anglicanism was first introduced with the establishment of the British East India Company's settlement of Penang Island in 1786. George Caunter, a local magistrate, was appointed as a Lay Clerk/Acting Chaplain in 1799 under the jurisdiction of the See of Calcutta. In 1819, the first Anglican church building, the Church of St. George the Martyr, was consecrated by the Bishop of Calcutta, Thomas Fanshawe Middleton.

In 1826, the Mission Chapel of the London Missionary Society (LMS) started services in Singapore and the first church building in Singapore was built in 1837. In 1842, a missionary of the LMS started the first girls school in Singapore, now known as St. Margaret's School. The work in Borneo started in 1848 when a group of missionaries led by Francis Thomas McDougall was invited by James Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak. In 1849, a wooden church was built in Kuching. In 1851, this church was consecrated by Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta in honour of St. Thomas the Apostle.