Although Trinidad became a British colony in 1797, the Church of England made little headway in the largely French and Spanish Roman Catholic island until 1844 when an aggressive expansion in the Anglican Church's mission took place.
Leading the charge was William Burnley (1780-1850) the richest man in Trinidad, owning vast estates, and having his seat of power at Orange Grove near Tacarigua. He donated a piece of land astride the old Spanish Royal Road (now Eastern Main Road) and bordered by the Caura River, for the establishment of a chapel.
Other planters soon got into the fray and in 1842, acting Governor Sir Charles Chichester laid the foundation stone of the St Mary's Anglican Church which was to be a wooden chapel raised on a foundation of Scottish firebricks. In addition to the land, the silver communion service was donated by Burnley and is still in use today.
Associated with the church was the St Mary's Orphanage across the road which was founded in 1857 by Burnley's confederate, William Eccles, who established the institution for the dozens of orphaned Indian children on the company's estates.
An expensive pipe organ was donated by several of the planters from nearby estates, most notably Henry Pasea of Streatham Lodge and Samuel Span of Paradise and Cane Farm. A solid brass lectern was installed too. Pews were of local wood, with brass nameplates affixed to some which belonged to the more important clans in the district such as the Hendersons and McLeans.
One of the shameful scandals to rock St Mary's occurred in 1884 when the aged rector, Archdeacon Samuel LaRoque Richards was brought before the Bankruptcy Court for apparently embezzling thousands of dollars in money and jewelry left in his keeping by Indian labourers of his parish.
Although not charged nor jailed, it was a great embarrassment to the church even though in his own crazy way, Archdeacon Richards saw himself as wronged since he kept none of the stolen wealth for himself, using every penny to help other poor folk. This had a debilitating effect on the evangelical success of the church among the Indians.
In 1887 the chapel was described thus:
"To the left of Tacarigua Station is the Orphan Home, to the right the parish church of St Mary. The foundation stone of the latter was laid in 1842 by Colonel Sir Charles Chichester, administrator, and the building was enlarged in 1879. Amongst other attractions it has an organ, a rara avis in the country parishes, though, it must be confessed, a rather ancient one."
In 1901, the wooden chapel was replaced by the present one built with Scottish firebricks and local limestone at the cost of $7,000. Stained glass windows–a parishioner's gift–were also added. In 1946, renovations occurred again which saw a re-plastering of the walls. Around the church is an extremely important historic cemetery wherein many of the planters and public officials who wielded such great power a century or more ago are buried.