St George’s cathedral,  Freetown, Sierra Leone

St George’s cathedral, Freetown, Sierra Leone 

St George’s Cathedral – one of Sierra Leone’s oldest churches, took eleven years to progress from the laying of the foundation stone on the 9th of January 1817, to the first service. Ever since then it has been a busy and important church – and not only for Sierra Leone.

At one time, the diocese of the Bishop of Sierra Leone on whose creation St. George’s became a Cathedral, spread across from Madeira, in the North and West, to Lagos in the South and East.

History tells us that Freetown was founded on three things: slaves, commerce and Christianity. Today, of the three, only Christianity and commerce survive.

The founding fathers of Christianity in Freetown were the Church Missionary Society (CMS), which founded schools such as the Sierra Leone Grammar school, the Annie Walsh Memorial School, and and one of the most important Colleges on the continent for over a century – the Fourah Bay College – now known as the University of Sierra Leone.

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