It was in the reign of King George III, on the twentieth day of July, 1812, when the King’s representative, Lieutenant-Colonel John Nugent Smyth, laid the foundation stone for the first church to be built in the British Settlement of Belize in the Bay of Honduras. This historical event began a new epoch in the history of the small and insecure Settlement and the church was appropriately dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Christian faith and the witness of a new age. Beyond the small territory of the Belize Settlement in Central America, the building of St. John’s was significant as here was “the first Protestant Episcopal Church founded in Spanish America.”

St. John’s was built at the request of the Magistrates and Committee of Public Works who formed the government of the Settlement in the early days. Their names, together with the names of the first Churchwardens, James McDonald and George Westby, are recorded on the impressive Georgian tablets on the North Wall, which were presented to the Church on Christmas Day, 1827. From Sir John Burdon’s “Archives of British Honduras” we read that the church was built at the expense of the people, which explains why a Public Fund was required in 1816 to remove “the enormous debt” so that “the religion of the Established Church may be performed and propagated in this distant part of the world.” The cost of building the church was £1,200 sterling.

Although St John’s was not built until 1812, its history goes back further, at least to 1776 when the first chaplain, the Revered Robert Shaw, arrived in Belize. He came from the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua and was a missionary sponsored by the Society of the Propagation of the Gospel (S.P.G.) in London, which still continues to support the Anglican Diocese in Belize as it has done faithfully for over 200 years. The early Anglican missionaries on the Mosquito Coast had been protected by the Mosquito Indian Kings as early as 1739 under “Edward, King of the Mosquitos.”

Near the West Door, the names of the Rectors and Deans of St. John’s have been recorded from 1776. The site of the house where the Rectors and Deans have lived stands next to Government House, facing the sea, and this site dates from 1820. Rectory Lane, which adjoins the present Deanery, is a reminder of the Rectors who descend from the earliest days of the Settlement.

Rectors, Rectors, Deans and Vicars of St. John’s Cathedral, 1776-current

Robert Shaw	1776-1786
William Stanford, M.A.	1794-1809
John Armstrong, B.A.	1812-1822
William Gerrard	1822-1824
Matthew Newport, D.D.	1824-1860
Robert Downtown, M.A.	1860-1870
Alfred Field	1870-1875
Augustus Sullivan	1875-1885
Hugh Nethercott, M.A.	1885-1890
Walter Crook	1903-1912
George Henry Hogbin, D.D.	1918-1931
Edwin Castledine, B.D.	1940-1942
Philip Henry Cecil, B.D.	1948-1951
Frederick Guy Harrison, B.D.	1952-1952
Alban Edward Russell	1953-1957
Gerald Richard Vernon, M.A.	1957-1963
Arthur Rothwell Higginson	1964-1964
Francis David Claude Powell, B.A.	1965-1969
David Gareth Lewis, M.A.	1969-1977
Lloyd Taylor	1978-1981
Eric Richards	1981-1986
Leroy Flowers	1986-1990
Eric Richards	1991-1992
Hardi Gordon	1991-1994
Philip wright	1994-1998
Lloyd Neal	1998-