George Frederick Hose was born on September 3, 1838 to Frederick Hose, a clerk, and his wife, Mary Ann Knight, in Brunswick Place, Cambridge. He grew up in a religious household that eventually led him to further his education at St John's College, Cambridge, where he gained an MA.^[1]

He was ordained in 1861 and was a curate first in the small village of Roxton in Bedfordshire, and then at Marylebone in London.^[2]However, a growing need for chaplains in the Malay Peninsula due to the rapid growth of the Chinese and Tamil immigrant population in the region prompted him to accept his calling to go to the East.

The colonial authorities imported Chinese and Tamil labour to fulfil needs in the plantation and mining sectors. By 1857 in Singapore alone, there was an estimated Chinese population of 40,000. In 1868, a full decade after he answered the call to serve, Hose arrived in Malacca.^[3]

He began his duties as chaplain of Malacca with much vigour, immediately instituting a mission to the Chinese in the area. He petitioned the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) for a catechist, who was sent the following year. He was also keenly interested in the expansion of the mission schools in the city.^[4] In 1873, Hose was appointed Colonial Chaplain of Singapore. Much work was done there among the Tamils on the island to raise Tamil catechists and priests so that the wider community could be reached. In October of the same year, a school and a mission church were commissioned to be built to consolidate Christian educational resources.^[5]

Under the leadership of Hose, a Tamil Mission was firmly established in 1874 and a mission chapel opened in 1875. This chapel, built solely through the donations of the local congregation and some aid from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, demonstrated that the work among the Tamils and Chinese was slowly bearing fruit.^[6]

Hose’s achievements eventually led him to be elevated to the position of Archdeacon of Singapore in 1875, a role he fulfilled with distinction. He began spearheading the establishment of a new mission station in Jurong, where a small chapel had already been built by a planter who was anxious for his workers to know Christ.^[7] This task, along with his call to raise a mission house in the compound of what is today St. Andrew’s Cathedral to accommodate Chinese and Tamil students in divinity, kept Hose occupied for the next two years. In 1878, a visit to this chapel in Jurong was recorded by the Colonial Secretary, who accompanied Archdeacon Hose to the site:

It was a working day, but the labourers in the gambier and pepper plantations left their work, and, with their employer, came to Service in the little rustic Chapel, which they had built by themselves. The building was quite full, and it was a heart-stirring spectacle to see these rough coolies using their Prayer Books, at least as intelligently as Bedfordshire villagers, joining in all the responses, saying the alternate verses of the canticles, singing most heartily if not very musically. And shewing in every possible way that they had learnt the meaning and use of common prayer. During the addresses that followed, they listened with the greatest attention, and I thought as I looked upon the changing expressions of their faces, that it was by no means an uncritical audience.^[8]

Work was slow among the many Chinese clans who all spoke different dialects. However, by the start of the 1880s, several Chinese missionaries had been raised through Hose’s initiatives and were beginning door-to-door preaching. 

With the resignation of Bishop Walter Chambers from the episcopate in 1881 on account of his ill health, it was duly decided by the Archbishopric of Canterbury that Archdeacon Hose would be elected to replace him. Thus, on May 26, 1881, Hose was consecrated as Bishop of Singapore, Labuan, and Sarawak at Lambeth Palace.^[9]

The area of jurisdiction that came under Bishop Hose was extremely large – covering the Straits Settlements and Borneo – which forced him to divide his time between the two regions. In Sarawak, Bishop Hose oversaw the appointments of the Reverends Mesney, Howell, Fowler, and Leggatt to their respective administrative divisions to ensure that the work was progressing smoothly there.^[10] However, his  key contribution to the island during his tenure as Bishop was in British North Borneo (present-day Sabah). 

Bishop Hose was on a visit to Sandakan in the new territories when the Governor and its residents petitioned him for a chaplain and money for a chapel. This request was forwarded to the SPG, which then sent a Chinese catechist to the country and later a priest named William Henry Elton. He would go on to ensure that North Borneo would be a bastion for Christ in the Far East, establishing churches in Sandakan and bringing the Gospel to the locals – many of whom were former head-hunters.^[11]

The Straits Settlements also saw growth during Bishop Hose’s tenure. He furthered the expansion of the Chinese Mission centred around St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Singapore, headed by the capable veteran of Borneo missions Reverend W.H. Gomes. Smaller centres were established throughout the peninsula and were also staffed by one to two catechists to serve Chinese immigrant communities there as well.^[12] To ensure that Tamil communities were not sidelined, Tamil missionaries were sent throughout the colony as well. In Penang, Rev Balavendrum served on the mission there for 33 years. In Selangor, St. Mary’s Church was consecrated by Bishop Hose in 1887 to serve the British community there. Meanwhile, he also secured the appointments of Rev F.W. Haines as chaplain-missionary and ordained Rev R.O. Vethavanam to advance the work among the Chinese and Tamils on the Peninsula.^[13]

Bishop Hose’s efforts to spread the Gospel went beyond the Malay Peninsula and Borneo. A station was set up for a while on the island of Java with funding from the SPG, and a chaplain-missionary was sent to minister to the local population. However, due to the lack of enthusiasm from the Dutch colonial authorities, Bishop Hose eventually gave up on the project. 

There was more success to be had in Bangkok where a sizeable British community could be found due to the growth of that city following the signing of multiple trade treaties with the British and Americans. In 1893, a request was made to Bishop Hose for a chaplain and, despite Siam being beyond his diocese’s jurisdiction, he sent Canon William Greenstock, who had been a missionary in South Africa, to serve there. Greenstock went on to spread the Gospel northwards toward Burma, while his daughter started a school for Eurasian children in Bangkok.^[14]

While the work on the peninsula and beyond was expanding, on Borneo, unhappily for Bishop Hose, missions were slowing down and stagnating. Many of the older cohorts of missionaries were resigning, reassigned elsewhere or had given up due to a lack of funding. Without a permanent staff, work on the island lapsed to such an extent that in 1900, Bishop Hose wrote to the SPG regarding his lack of manpower, to which the SPG responded: 

never in our history has there been such a dearth of clergymen offering themselves for missionary work.^[15]

It became clear to Bishop Hose that a permanent increase in manpower and funds was needed, whether it be from the SPG or other sponsors. Government officials, businessmen, and other members of the Church threw their support behind the Bishop and petitioned the SPG for a permanent endowment of their works in the region. Although their efforts were eventually successful in 1908, Bishop Hose did not stay long enough to see the fruits of his petitions as he had already resigned earlier the same year due to ill health. He had given 40 years to Malaya as a missionary, 27 of which he served as Bishop.^[16]

Besides fulfilling his duties in the episcopate with much vigour, Bishop Hose was also a capable Malay scholar, being by all accounts extremely fluent in the local language. He promoted the founding of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (today the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society) in 1877 to spearhead the collection and study of geographic, historic, and cultural information in the region, which would then be published in the form of journal articles. Bishop Hose served as the Society’s president from 1878 to 1908, when he resigned from the episcopate and returned to England.^[17]

Even after his resignation, Bishop Hose did what he could to further the spread of the Gospel in Malaya. Together with W.H. Gomes, Hose published a translation of the Book of Common Prayer in 1915 through the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCH), which was intended for use among the Malay populations of Peninsula Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, Borneo, and Brunei.^[18]

Bishop Hose passed away on 22 March 1922 at the age of 83 in England.