El Dorado

 

This golden sunset was captured travelling home to Yupukari on Guyana’s Rupununi river where Anne and I were married. I wear a wedding ring made with Guyana gold. Throughout my time in the Rupununi I came across miners drawn to Guyana’s interior by the lure of gold. The lost city of gold called El Dorado was associated with the parish I served which witnessed a flow of European treasure hunters from 1492 when Columbus came on the South American scene. Literally meaning ‘Golden Man’ El Dorado has also been associated with legendary kings of the Muisca people populating the northern Andes who were initiated by being covered in gold dust before leaping into Lake Guatavita. The gold lust impacts to this day the indigenous people of Guyana adversely caught up for centuries in the quest for gold and the conflicts associated with it. 

This picture of Anne Twisleton in the Alan Knight Training Centre land rover recalls our service in Guyana 1987-1990 which was built on two centuries of mission partnership with the Church of England. I gained a wife in Guyana. One of my predecessors in the Rupununi lost two! The Revd Thomas Youd (1812-42) had no land rover and had to serve there as ‘schoolmaster, sick nurse, doctor, captain, architect, boat-builder, mason and blacksmith’. ‘Though he travelled to Indian settlements up the rivers he adhered to saying morning and evening prayers and learning Akawaio, Carib, Macushi Languages and even Creole Dutch. He had to face tragedies - his nephew who came to assist him died here, as did his first wife and his infant son. Travelling as far as Apoteri and into the Rupununi where his second wife died probably from poisoning Youd himself, weakened by malaria it is assumed, died at sea in 1842 on his way back to England’. 

Described by a youthful Queen Victoria as ‘the youngest and handsomest of my bishops’ William Austin was consecrated Bishop of Guiana in Westminster Abbey and enthroned in St George’s Cathedral 1 December 1842 thereby conferring city status upon Georgetown. This happened five years after the emancipation of slaves among whom Austin had previously ministered as also among the amerindian peoples. William Austin’s 50 year episcopate was remarkable and reflects his notable physical and spiritual stamina. He led the Anglican Church through the heady post-emancipation period which saw a great influx of East Indian and Chinese immigrants many of whom found a place in the Diocese of Guiana. Austin made the church accessible by insisting candidates for the priesthood study Hindi and by using Chinese-speaking catechists. A great educationalist, Bishop Austin promoted the church’s leadership in elementary education and helped the Diocese found Queen's College (1844) to serve secondary education and Bishop’s College for training both priests and teachers. On November 9,1892 Bp. Austin was laid to rest in the St. James-the-Less cemetery after many years of unstinted service in God's vineyard’. Austin House, the official residence of the Anglican bishops of Guyana is named after William Austin.

It's an enormous privilege to be a Canon of St George’s Cathedral, Guyana, South America. ‘The wooden church reaches a height of 43.5 metres (143 ft)… St. George's was designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield and… has been designated a national monument… It was in the Gothic style of architecture, complete with flying buttresses, but it also had a tropical flavour, ensuring light and air… St. George's was built mainly of Greenheart wood’ (Wikipedia). With Blomfield’s gothic edifice (1894) dedicated to England’s patron St George the Church of England made its mark on British Guiana and the name of its capital, Georgetown. As a national monument pointing heavenwards it represents a high point of the Christian evangelisation of South America which rode awkwardly on the back of the seeking of El Dorado’s gold, exploitation of human beings through slavery on the sugar plantations and bonded labour in the rice industry. Worth more than gold is the growth of churches born from the Church of England, many of which now exceed their mother’s in size and vitality.