St. George’s Mission Church was created on Christmas Day, 1877, with just a handful of parishioners. As industry came to the area, so did industrial workers and the church grew quickly. After meeting in Mechanics Hall for several years, the congregation was finally able to move into their new church when the first services were held in the building on June 2, 1882, conducted by the Rev. George Hodgson of Charlottetown.
Though it retains a certain amount of its original character, the building was substantially remodelled and enlarged in 1911, creating the building we see today. At that time it was described by a local newspaper,
The Enterprise, as “
in its appearance, appointments and furnishings … cozy, comfortable, strikingly appropriate and inviting to communion and worship”.
In the ensuing years more remodelling and renovation has been undertaken, culminating in a $230,000 renovation in the early 2000s which included a new roof, furnace, foyer doors, and new carpet in the nave, chancel and foyer. As well, the front gardens were expanded, a new church sign was installed and fencing was added at the back of the church to enclose the back of the rectory.
The Church of England, or Anglican Church, in Pictou County had its origin in Pictou; the latter's rectors served Albion Mines, and the few Anglicans in the first three quarters of the last century who lived in New Glasgow had their spiritual needs filled by the clergy who came from Pictou to Stellarton, and from 1851 onwards by the rectors of Christ Anglican Church.
1877 saw the beginning of Saint George's Parish in New Glasgow. The congregation began to worship in Mechanics Hall, where Sobeys Archimedes Street groceteria now stands. Four years later, 1881, the parishioners bought land on the corner of Forbes and Temperance Streets, and began construction of the present day Saint George's Church. Leading laymen of the early limes included the Townsend, Gray, Bent, Chambers and Mason families which in the late twentieth century are still actively associated with Saint George's.
By 1888 the Parish had prospered to the point where it was able to call its own rector, the Rev. Francis Rev. Francis H.W. Archbold. Saint Georges Parish henceforth was a completely separate entity from Christ Anglican in Stellarton, to whom it owed its beginning.
The Church building was enlarged and remodelled in 1911; in 1948 the Chancel was enlarged and again in 1952 the Church was enlarged underneath and a basement hall was added to facilitate the Parish's sustained growth, which earlier had necessitated the construction
of a Parish Hall in 1924. Additional building improvements were undertaken in 1958, among them the installation of eleven stained glass windows depicting the Life of Christ. In the pastorate of Rev. Joseph Abbott a mission was built at Thorburn.
From More About New Glasgow