by 1855

A bishop, a village, and a childless house

The money came from three places. The bishop carried it longest: for eighteen years Canoz sent at least two thousand francs a year toward the building. The village raised its share out of its own pockets, a little at a time, through seven years. And one family gave in thanksgiving. Christopher Bilderbeck was the European merchant of the village, and he and his wife had been married twenty-seven years without a child; he was past fifty by then, which is the age at which a man stops asking. They asked anyway. They prayed to Our Lady of this church, and before the year was out a son was born to them. Over all of it stood the parish priest: it is to Fr Joseph Grégoire's “persevering energy”, wrote the mission's own chronicler, that “this fine Christian community owes its great church.”

DocumentedThis moment rests on 4 sources.
Trento 2022p. 285
reading as an eighteenth-century catechist 285 was immodest as [vukkiy], but married the d[aughter] of Thamma Chettiar of Sekkarakudi at Vadak. He was afterwards ubedesi of Srivaikuntam where he planted the three of the present puliantopu ["tamarind grove"]. He resigned and became a teacher (near Esalapuram) of Tharmathupuram. Finally he came to Vadakankulam where he became the accountant of Mr. Bilderbeck. Caught by fever at Puliangudi (Vasudevanallur) he was brought to his father-in-law's house at Kamanayakanpatti where he died in 1767 at the age of 35. Saverimuthu P. was a learned man, tall in stature, fair in appearance, of great faith--writer & author of "Thembavani", "Sathuragarathi", "Kitteriammal ammanei" & others. His wife Madavadial, the third of the children of Thammu Chettiar, died at Thuttampatti.25 This account shows that the geographical contours of Cavarimuttu's life overlapped in many ways with Beschi's missionary trajectory. He traveled to the Maravar country soon after Beschi was there to collect witnesses for Brito's inquiry, and he worked as resident catechist (vcal upatci) at Kmanyakkapatti, where Beschi began his missionary career. Finally, towards the end of his life, Cavarimuttu worked as secretary of a certain Mr. Bilderbeck. While the chronology given by Arpudam is coherent with that found in Caverirya Piai's family history, it does not map exactly onto the admittedly little information available on Mr. Bilderbeck. This merchant, Christopher Bilderbeck (d. 1817), father of the better-known Anglican missionary John Bilderbeck (18091880), likely settled in Vaakkakuam only late in the eighteenth century, considering that he was born around 1758.26 Exact dating aside, though, it is not surprising that in this context Cavarimuttu would come into contact with Beschi's literary works. But what does the last sentence of the passage mean? How could Cavarimuttu be "writer & author" of most of Beschi's poems? The answer becomes obvious when reading another short note in the Arpudam manuscript, clearly referring to the relationship between a manuscript and its owner, rather than a text and its author: 25 Arpudam, A Genealogical Study, 124. 26 Yv Tvacakya, Upatciyar cavariryapiai, 77 contains a short notice on Mr. Bilderback saying that he had no children from his wife, only from his Indian mistress, but still raised them like Europeans. On his approximate date of birth, see the webpage: http:// www.vincematthews.plus.com/family/bild01.htm (consulted on 16/09/2021). His first son John Bilderbeck (18091880) became and Anglican pastor, and his obituary can be found in K. et al., Church missionary intelligencer record. A monthly journal of missionary information, vol. 5 (London: Church missionary house, 1880), 512513.
285

Writing Tamil CatholicismBrill, 2022 — open access

Still in copyright. We quote a short passage with attribution, as the law allows, and do not reproduce the page.

What this source establishes

The chronological check: Christopher Bilderbeck was born about 1758 and died in 1817 — thirty-eight years before the foundation stone — so the remembered benefactor cannot himself have paid for this building.