Shortly after his arrival, Brother Knorr met with the Kingston Congregation, which then numbered over a hundred publishers, and outlined proposals for expansion of the work in Kingston. He proposed that the Kingston Congregation be divided into three congregations and that the second floor of the branch building, which was used as the Kingdom Hall, be converted into a missionary home. The brothers happily agreed. Three congregations were soon organized and were named East, West and Central, according to their location in the city.

RAPID INCREASE

The East Congregation, with missionary Aleck Bangle as congregation servant, increased from 26 publishers in April 1946 to 67 by August of the same year. Similar increase was seen in the other two congregations. As a result, the number of publishers in Kingston increased to 265 within six months, and the number of publishers island wide reached a thousand for the first time, with 35 serving as pioneers.

Soon, all three congregations bought property and built their own Kingdom Halls. The expansion continued over the years​—rapid at first and steady during the decades of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Today, Kingston and its suburbs have 12 Kingdom Halls, 22 congregations and a total of 2,156 publishers.