In 1841, Robert Carver was back at this post in San Thome, with a license from the Bishop of Madras, and his connection with the Methodists severed. He was ordained deacon and priest in 1842, and in December of the same year – by which time more money had been collected, he had the supreme satisfaction of witnessing the consecration of the present St. Thomas English Church and an adjacent burial ground by Bishop Spencer of Madras, in the presence of the Metropolitan.
Carver died of brain fever, resulting from sunstroke in 1845 and was buried under the altar. The Bishop, then out of Madras, having heard of Carver’s hopeless state, wrote in his journal: “The sad tidings reached me here of the utterly hopeless state of my dear, long-tried, and always found faithful friend, Mr. Carver, one of the most devoted servants, I hesitate not to say, of the Lord Jesus Christ in the diocese”. The following inscription on the tablet over the grave was composed by the Bishop himself: “Sacred to the memory of the Rev. Robert Carver, Missionary of the S.P.G., and late minister of this parish, who departed this life at St. Thome on August 25, 1845, age 57 years, after thirty years of devoted work in India. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord”.