The Cathedral of the Good Shepherd was built between 1843 and 1846, based on a design by Denis Leslie Mc Swiney. Being the first ever permanent Catholic church in Singapore, it served to unite the Catholics religiously. When the chapel became too small to accommodate its expanding community, the Catholic Church at Queen Street was built. It was consecrated as a Cathedral on 14 February 1897.

In the 1830s French missionaries had begun to arrive. On 18 October 1832, one of the priests, Father Boucho obtained a site for a church and vicarage at Bras Basah Road on the site of the St Joseph's Institution, which is now the Singapore Art Museum. The building was completed on 9 June 1833.

In 1839, the church received a new parish priest, Father Jean-Marie Beurel. The 26 year-old founded two schools, the St Joseph's Institution and the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ), the grounds of which have since been redeveloped into the commercial hub of CHIJMES.

The original structure, measuring no more than 20 by 10 metres, quickly proved inadequate for the needs of the expanding congregation. Father Boucho favoured enlarging the existing church. Father Beurel's vision, however, was to convert the old church into a school and build a new church elsewhere.

Father Beurel had his way. The government consented to give additional land across Bras Basah Road. The design of the building was said to have been the subject of a competition between two well-known residents, Denis Lesley McSwiney and John Turnbull Thomson, with McSwiney's design being accepted as it was the less expensive of the two.