Eulogy delivered by Roger Tan for the Revd Dr. George Hood at
the Sunday Worship Service of Holy Light Church (English) on 20 January 2013
Members of this congregation, it gives me great honour and
yet sadness to deliver a eulogy for the Revd Dr. George Hood who passed away
peacefully in his sleep in the early hours of the morning of Wednesday, January
the 9th at his home in Alnwick, Northumberland, England. According to his
daughter, Catherine, George was normal the night before when she helped him to
the bed. He was 95.
This Church remembers him as the one instrumental in
restarting this English Service on the evening of the first Sunday of August,
being 3rd of August, 1952 after it had ceased shortly with the passing of Dato’
James Meldrum in 1904.
George was a veteran missionary and Church historian. Born on
Friday, April 27, 1917, he graduated in history at Oxford and studied at
Cambridge for the ministry of the Presbyterian Church of England (now known as
the United Reformed Church). In 1943, he was ordained at Trinity Presbyterian
Church, Newcastle to serve as a missionary. He first served at the English
Presbyterian Mission in Lingdong Synod of the former Church of Christ in Shantou
(or historically known as Swatow), China, between 1945 to 1950. This was also
the area in which his wife, Elizabeth’s parents and grandparents had worked from
1869 onwards. Elizabeth passed away on October 7, 2010.
