THE Smith Memorial Congregational Church on Brickdam will celebrate its 174th Anniversary this month.
The occasion will be marked by an anniversary service this Sunday at 09:00 hrs.
The Church stands on the green lawns of the parish situated on the south-eastern shoulder of Brickdam, Georgetown.

It was erected in memory of Reverend John Smith, a London Missionary Society Minister, who was sentenced to die by hanging for the role he allegedly played in the notorious East Coast Demerara Slave Rebellion of 1823.
He died while a prisoner on death row on February 6, 1824, and subsequently came to be referred to as the ‘Demerara Martyr’.

Smith arrived in Demerara in February 1817 to succeed the Reverend John Wray, a pioneer missionary of the London Missionary Society, at the Bethel Chapel at Le Ressouvenir on the lower East Coast.
And, like Wray, he taught the slaves to read the Bible and Catechism, so much so that one of them, Quamina, was at one point made Senior Deacon of Bethel Chapel.

His son, Jack Gladstone, and other slaves suffered death for the role they allegedly played during the 1823 uprising, which had as its goal the freedom of the slaves.

On November 24, 1843, exactly 20 years after the date on which the Reverend John Smith was sentenced to death, Smith Memorial Church was opened as a tribute to the work and suffering the had to endure on behalf of his deacons, members and other followers.