Order of Foresters... and members of the M.U.I.O.O.F. Lodge... the children, with flags and banners waving, taking precedence." Construction was a drawn-out affair, and it wasn't until in 1873 when a Mr Borlase was contracted to complete the church that sufficient progress was made which allowed the church to be completed. The church was opened on 28 April 1874 at which the Bishop of Dunedin spoke to a congregation of 300, and congratulated Port Chalmers on its fifth place of worship, but stating, for the record, that of those other four places of worship: "unity would best be accomplished by the return of the Church's erring children to herself". The first vicar of the church was the Rev. W. Leeson, who had been leading the congregation prior to the church being completed. After three years of service he left in April 1876 for England after a valedictory service on 9 April 1876, in which he noted the difficulty he and his parishioners had faced in building the church: "To their zealous co-operation was to be attributed the overcoming of the many difficulties that had beset the erection of the new church, which when he came amongst them was a mere heap of stones, the foundation only laid. Then they worshipped with no slight disadvantages at the Masonic Hall, but by dint of untiring perseverance in the good work they had put forth their hands to, had succeeded in raising for themselves a structure in honour of their Maker." Evidently the association between the Masonic Lodge and Holy Trinity Church was on-going; the Otago Daily Times reporting a Masonic wedding taking place at the church in January 1878. The Rev. Lorenzo Moore replaced Leeson and served until 1878, when he left after his offer to fund the building of a parsonage was rebuffed. The Rev. Moore was replaced by Rev. F. J. Sotham, from Oxford, England. The congregation proceeded to build a Sunday school hall and a bell tower, for which the bells were dedicated on 14 November 1879. This was the first belltower erected in the Dunedin Diocese. The larger of the two bells had been sent from England three years earlier by the same Rev. Leeson who left in 1876, but had not been raised due to "financial difficulties". The bell tower has since been demolished. By 1879 the church's Sunday school had a roll of 116 students, with