The Diocese of Kuching is a diocese of the Anglican Church of the Province of South East Asia that covers Sarawak (in Malaysia) and Brunei. Founded in 1962, the see was originally established as the Bishopric of Sarawak linked to the Diocese of Labuan in 1855. The current bishop is the Most Rev'd Danald Jute, 14th Lord Bishop of the Diocese of Kuching and Brunei, who was consecrated on 13 August 2017. His seat is at St. Thomas' Cathedral, Kuching.
An Anglican mission, called the Borneo Church Mission, was established in 1846 and the Anglican Church began in Sarawak on 29 June 1848, when a party of missionaries arrived at the invitation of James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak. Francis Thomas McDougall who led the group was deemed suitable for the job because he was a doctor as well as a priest,
The Rajah gave the missionaries a piece of land on which to build their base. The land was used to build a church, which was to serve as pro-cathedral for many years, as well as a school which later grew into St. Thomas' and St. Mary's, and also a dispensary.
It was soon realised that the Church in the Rajah's territory would be better administered as a bishopric. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel supported the proposal and contributed a sum of £5,000 towards the endowment. However, the political conventions of the day ruled that no Anglican diocese could be created outside the limits of the British Empire, and Sarawak was technically an independent principality of the Rajah. The difficulty was sidestepped by founding the diocese upon the island of Labuan, a Crown Colony since 1846. The bishop of Labuan could then be appointed bishop of Sarawak by the Rajah. This practice prevailed until Sarawak became a Crown Colony in 1946.