The first Catholic chapel in Singapore was set up in 1832 on the future site of St Joseph's Institution, and was home to the French Catholic Mission. During this period, there were some 200 Chinese Catholics in Singapore. The first Catholic church, the Church of the Good Shepherd, was completed in 1846. The old chapel was converted into a parish school and Chinese missionary activities continued to be based there.
Owing to the expansion of the Catholic congregation at the Good Shepherd, a new church for Chinese and Indian Catholics was constructed in 1870 in Queen Street. This was the Church of St Peter and St Paul. Yet further expansion of the congregation saw Indian Catholic constructing their own Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in 1888. In 1910, the Cantonese and Hakka congregation of St Peter and St Paul, constructed their own church at Tank Road, known as the Church of the Sacred Heart. The Hokkien Catholics of the Chinese Mission moved to their own Church of St Theresa at Kampong Bahru in 1929.
In 2003, the Church of St Peter and St Paul was gazetted as a national monument.