Beginning of mission work

The history of the Diocese of Sabah begins with the mission work which was carried out in the crown colony of Labuan and British North Borneo. In 1846, the island of Labuan was ceded to Great Britain by the Sultanate of Brunei as the result of the Treaty of Labuan. As there was no resident Anglican priest in Labuan, the Bishop of London granted the Lieutenant Governor, John Scott, the authority to perform weddings and funerals using the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.^[1]

Among the first Anglican missionaries sent to Borneo in 1846 was the Revd Dr Francis Thomas McDougall, a priest, medical doctor and surgeon. Although his base was in Kuching, Sarawak, technicalities in canon law led to him being consecrated as the Bishop of Labuan and its Dependencies in 1855.^[2] The Church of Our Holy Saviour, Labuan which was the first Anglican church in the present-day Diocese of Sabah, was consecrated by Bishop McDougall in 1866, although there is evidence of a congregation on the island since 1850.^[3]

In 1878, Baron von Overbeck, the Austrian Consul in Hong Kong, and Alfred Dent, a British entrepreneur, obtained territorial possession of what became British North Borneo. The North Borneo Chartered Company was set up to administer this region. The Englishman William Burgess Pryer was appointed "Resident" of the East Coast. He founded the town of Sandakan in 1879. A committed Anglican, Pryer requested ministerial assistance from the then-Bishop of Labuan, George Frederick Hose. Bishop Hose was unable to visit Sandakan until 1884 but in 1883 sent a Chinese catechist, Ah Leng, to minister to the Chinese-speaking Christians in Kudat as well as Sandakan.^[4]

First two churches in North Borneo

The first priest sent to North Borneo was the Revd William Henry Elton, a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG). Arriving in Sandakan in 1888, he found a suitable piece of land to build the first Anglican church in present-day Sabah, St. Michael's and All Angels Church, Sandakan.^[5] He also set up St Michael's Boys' School and St Monica's Girls' School.^[6]

The first capital of British North Borneo was Kudat. Groups of Hakka Christians were brought over from China to farm the surrounding area. Although they had been evangelised by disparate denominations back in China, Elton managed to convince them to form a single congregation.^[7] Thus, St James' Anglican Church, Kudat was born. The first Asian priest in North Borneo, the Revd Fong Hau Kong, was ordained deacon in 1898 and priest in 1910 having served as a catechist in Kudat.^[8]

Expansion on the coasts

The port town of Jesselton was founded in 1899. Elton swiftly secured land for a church, and the SPG sent a missionary priest, the Revd George Clarke, to the area in 1902.^[9] By 1914 the mission included a boys' school, known later as All Saints' School, St Agnes' Girls School and All Saints' Parish Church.^[10]

In the southeastern town of Tawau, the church of St Patrick's was finally established in 1917, 18 years after Revd Elton's first visit to the town in 1899. The first resident priest, Revd Vun Nen Vun, was a graduate of the short-lived but notable College of the Holy Way in Kudat, an experiment in educating local clergy.^[11]

World War II and aftermath

Mission work in the region was severely affected by the Second World War. The Japanese army's assault on North Borneo began on 27 December 1941, and by the end of February they had taken over the territory. Foreign clergy and other missionaries were interned, including Sisters Irene and Alison from the Community of the Companions of Jesus the Good Shepherd, who were serving as teachers in Sandakan.^[12] Into the vacuum created by the imprisonment of the missionaries stepped the few local clergy, including the five graduates of the College of the Holy Way, namely the Revd Chin Phu Yin, the Revd Chong En Siong, the Revd Lai Chun Sang, the Revd Lim Siong Teck and the Revd Vun Nen Vun.^[13] Christians suffered persecution during the Japanese occupation as they were adherents of a faith considered to be "Western." Nevertheless, most held on to their faith during this difficult time.

North Borneo was liberated by the Allied Forces in October 1945. Much had to be done to rebuild the church both in a physical as well as a spiritual sense. The Rt Revd Nigel Cornwall, the newly-appointed Bishop of Borneo, managed to secure assistance in the form of missionary nurses, priests and teachers from the Australian Board of Missions and the Australian branch of the Church Mission Society.^[14]

The Sabah Anglican Interior Mission (SAIM)

Throughout the first seventy years of Anglican mission work in North Borneo, the focus had been on the coastal areas which were generally urban or semi-urban. An attempt to evangelise the peoples of the interior was started in Keningau in 1896, but this work among the Murut people had to be abandoned in 1902 due to the ill-health and transfer to Singapore of pioneer missionary the Revd Fred Perry.^[15]

Work in the interior resumed in earnest in 1958 with the founding of the Sabah Anglican Interior Mission (SAIM). The initial impetus behind the SAIM came from Bruce Sandilands, a district surveyor who was moved by the poverty he encountered during his trips along rivers which reached deep into the interior, such as the Kinabatangan. He convinced the Rector of St Michael's Sandakan, the Revd Canon Frank Lomax, to accompany him upriver. Lomax was similarly moved by the difficulties faced by the rural villagers, and thus the SAIM was conceived and born to uplift the spiritual and material well-being of the peoples in the interior.^[16]