In this petition, the people also requested help in the rebuilding of their church, which had been destroyed, along with the rest of the city, in 1696 by the French under the command of Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville.

During the centuries, at least six wooden churches stood on or near this site; each was destroyed by military operations during the various wars between the French and the British.

[5][6] Little progress was made on this relatively modest edifice beyond the laying of a cornerstone before Spencer resigned due to ill health.

Feild commissioned plans from a leading Gothic Revival architect, George Gilbert Scott, who envisioned a more impressive cruciform structure, with varied ornamentation in the 12th-century English style.

Construction on the choir and transept section did not commence until 1880 and was completed in September 1885, under the direction of Bishop James Kelly.

On July 8, 1892, in an unhappy coincidence to the fate of its chapel-of-ease in Bermuda, the cathedral was extensively damaged in the Great Fire of 1892.

[citation needed] In 1923 the Congolese-English sculptor Mahomet Thomas Phillips, and his son Lancelot, completed a reredos for the cathedral that took them 2,779 hours to create.