Will anybody step in and save Greyfriars Church? Are we so powerless as to let this gem of history be literally hammered to the ground? This fine church with its thousand memories was founded by Alexander Kennedy, the most dynamic and zealous of our missionaries.He came here from Scotland (presumably Glasgow) in 1836 and in the same year he converted an unused building on Cambridge Street (then part of St Vincent Street) into a little chapel.
But he was not satisfied. He wanted to build his own church, and it was the following year, 1837, that he set to work.Kennedy found a good plot of ground on nearby Frederick Street, opposite to the north-eastern corner of Brunswick Square–today Woodford Square–and on this plot his building rose up. It was fashioned after Grey Friars in Glasgow, the mother Presbyterian church, and when the building was completed he named it "Grey Friars." One of the things that made the Rev Alexander Kennedy stand out was his fierce opposition to slavery, and this fearless man bitterly attacked the slave-owning planters and called for the abolition of slavery without delay. The other islands of the British West Indies were going to free the then apprentices in 1838, but Trinidad was not, because, according to Governor Fitzgerald Hill, it was a crown colony.
Kennedy denounced this excuse and campaigned for immediate freedom. The governor listened to no one until there was the threat of insurrection. It was a happy coincidence that the Rev Kennedy's church was opened in 1838, the same year Governor Hill joined the other governors in proclaiming the abolition of slavery.
Michael Anthony
St James