The Bishop of Stepney
PRECURSORS
Since
1895 the Diocese of London has had a suffragan, or area, Bishop of
Stepney, responsible for East London. From 1879-88 William
Walsham How (1823-97) - known as 'Walsham' - [right at various periods of his life - final picture by Hugh Littleton Norris, 1897, held at Wadham College, Oxford] was
suffragan Bishop of Bedford
(prior to the creation of the diocese of St
Alban's), who performed a similar function. It irked him greatly that
some commentators assumed his area of responsibility was primarily
rural - though his roots were in Shropshire, and he came to
London after more than thirty years ministry there: son of a Shrewsbury
solicitor from Cumbria, after Shrewsbury School, Wadham College Oxford,
and
University College Durham, he was ordained to a curacy at Kidderminster
in 1846 (his incumbent became Bishop of St Albans), returning 'for
family reasons' as curate of Shrewsbury Abbey from 1848, then for 28
years from 1851 was Rector of
Whittington (and Rural Dean of Oswestry from 1854, honorary canon of St
Asaph in 1860, and Proctor in Convocation 1868). He became known as a
devotional writer and effective leader of missions, retreats and quiet
days, and is said to have declined the bishoprics of Natal (1867), New
Zealand (1868), Montreal (1869), Cape Town (1873), and Jamaica (1878),
besides a canonry, with superintendence of home mission work, at
Winchester (1878), and the important livings of Brighton (1870), All
Saints', Margaret Street (1873), and Windsor, with a readership to the
queen (1878). But the following year he agreed to become a suffragan
bishop and 'leader of an East End crusade'. The City parish of St Andrew Undershaft with
St Mary-at-Axe, of which he became titular Rector the day after his consecration, provided his stipend.
...
we went a glacier expedition. We had a guide, but no rope, as it was
thought pretty safe, but the newly fallen snow was treacherous, and one
of our party, an elderly gentleman, fell into a deep crevasse, twenty
or thirty feet down, and quite out of sight. It was very anxious work,
as we had to send a long way for a rope, and there he had to stay. We
could shout down to him, and he up to us, and, most mercifully, he was
not seriously hurt, only jambed in the ice. When the guide brought the
rope and some other men he had some difficulty in getting it round his
chest, but did at last manage it, and then some seven or eight good
hauls by four strong men brought him up. Some of
us could not help bursting into tears when he was saved, and the Bishop
of Gloucester, who was with us, and who is an experienced Alpine
climber, gathered us all together on the ice (we were a party of about
twelve), and offered up a thanksgiving, and then we all sang the
Doxology together. It was very affecting. I had only just crossed the
dangerous spot, and, on hearing the shout of an accident, turned round
to go and see, and slipped and twisted my left knee. A shade more and I
could not have got away, and, as it was, I had to walk two hours more
over the ice, often very dangerous, limping in great pain. I can only
just hobble with a stick today. We all feel we had a lesson in caution
in glacier work. |
Walsham How's successor as Bishop of Bedford from 1888-98 was Robert Claudius Billing [left from the Strand magazine in 1894], though he resigned his duties from 1895, when his health broke down. Born
in Maidstone in 1834 to a clerical family, he studied at Wye College,
and Worcester
College Oxford, and was ordained in 1857 to the curacy of St Peter
Colchester [then in Rochester diocese]; was curate of Compton Bishop,
Somerset from 1861 and also secretary of the Church Missionary Society
until 1863, when he became Vicar of Louth in Lincolnshire (remaining
with CMS as an honorary assistant secretary), and Chaplain of the Manor
of Worlaby [near Brigg in Lincolnshire] in 1870, before coming to
London, as Vicar of Holy Trinity Islington from 1873-78 and Rector of
Spitalfields from 1878, and Rural Dean. He edited Missionary Leaves
for CMS. From 1891, like his predecessor, he was titular Rector of St Andrew Undershaft with
St Mary-at-Axe. He was a keen supporter of
the volunteer movement, and chaplain of the 2nd Tower Hamlets
Volunteers. On his death (aged 63) the
title of Bishop of Bedford lapsed, until a suffragan of St Alban's was appointed in
1935.
From 1898 to 1923
there was a
Bishop of Islington, again financed by the Rectory of St Andrew Undershaft - Charles Henry Turner,
Rector of St George-in-the-East prior to his consecration; but no successor was
ever appointed (a recent suggestion to revive the title for Sandy
Millar came to nothing when he was consecrated as an assistant bishop
of Uganda).
1895: BISHOP OF STEPNEY
The
episcopal area of Stepney (and Archdeaconry of Hackney) comprises what are now the three deaneries of Tower Hamlets, Hackney
and Islington, more-or-less co-terminous with the London
boroughs of these names, though the rural/area deanery boundaries have
changed many times over the years.
For some years - certainly during the time of Bishops Mosley, Curzon and Moberly, and maybe before and after - the post was funded by the income of the City parishes of St Margaret Lothbury with St Christopher-le-Stocks, St Bartholomew Exchange, St Olave Old Jewry, St Martin Pomeroy, St Mildred Poultry, and St Mary Colechurch, with a combined population of 51 and an annual income of over £2000 plus a house; they were also titular Rectors of these parishes.
The
roll-call is a distinguished one: many moved on to become diocesan
bishops or archbishops, at home and overseas, and East Enders have
taken pride in this. Even
those for whom Stepney seemed (to local chagrin) a stepping stone, rather than a
long-term commitment, took to their posts elsewhere the
experience of the particular joys, sorrows and challenges of urban
ministry. They did not always live in their 'patch' - Browne, Lang and Lunt, for
example, lived in Amen Court, by St Paul's Cathedral (since they were also residentiary canons there), and Curzon
moved to a house in Bedford Square WC1 on the grounds
that this was more central and accessible; but Moberly lived in
Islington, and more recent successors
believed it was vital to live in the East End. Trevor Huddleston lived
at 400 Commercial Road
(the former parsonage house of one of our district churches),
as did Jim Thompson before he moved further east to a smaller house;
this proved too small, so the current see house is a former parsonage
in Coborn Road, Mile End.
Where possible, they
are pictured below at various stages of their ministry - in Stepney and
later. Many of these images are held by the National Portrait Gallery. Trevor Beeson The Bishops (SCM 2003) has interesting comments on a number of them; some have full-blown biographies!
2: 1897-1901 Arthur
Foley Winnington-Ingram (1858-1946),
then Bishop of London
for 38 years until his retirement in 1939 at the age of 81, was born in
Worcestershire (his father was a parson, his mother a bishop's
daughter); he studied at Keble College Oxford, and was a private tutor and
then a curate in Shrewsbury and chaplain to the Bishop of Lichfield
before coming to the East End as head of
the Oxford House settlement in Bethnal Green from 1888-97 (it's still
there, now doing work appropriate for the 21st century): while there,
he was also chaplain to the Bishop of St Albans and the Archbishop of
York. At Oxford House, and then as Bishop of Stepney, he was a
pioneer of social work initiatives in London - and, it's said, his
accent took on a slight East End twang that he never lost. He never married,
though during his time at Stepney was briefly engaged to Lady Ulrica
Duncombe. The most controversial aspect of his time as Bishop of London
was his uncritical stance during the First World War, and his 1927-28 world tour also
attracted attention, when he was picked on by the Soviets. Because
he was in office so long, he rather 'lost the plot' in terms of clergy
discipline and other aspects of diocesan organisation. He wrote many
books (including one in 1901 with the intriguing title The Afterglow of a
Great Reign), particularly around the War years, and later
published an
autobiography Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram, D.D., K.C.V.O., Fifty Years' Work in London (1889-1939) (Longmans Green 1940); after his death S.C. Carpenter (Dean of Exeter) wrote The Biography of Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram, Bishop of London 1901-1939 (Hodder & Stoughton 1949). [Pictures
show him at the time of his appointment to London (1) from Vanity Fair
1901, & (2); (3) Vanity Fair in 1912; (4) painting of 1918; (5)
& (6) later in his
ministry and (7) a painting of c1939 by Alice Mary Burton, from
the Fulham Palace collection]
3: 1901-09 William Cosmo Gordon Lang (1864-1945): Cosmo Lang was the son of a Scots Presbyterian minister, with no great religious interest as a student at Balliol - he was destined for the bar - until he became convinced that he should seek ordination. His was a moderate catholic by inclination, combining the fruits of the Oxford Movement with the liberal views of Lux Mundi and the heirs of F.D. Maurice and Charles Kingsley (much later he was an early advocate of the Parish Communion movement, and was the first modern archbishop to wear cassock [black, not purple] rather than gaiters as day dress - despite the final photograph! - and to wear rather than carry a mitre in church). He served a curacy at Leeds Parish Church in 1900, returning to Oxford three years later to fellowships at All Souls and Magdalen, examining chaplaincies and a period as Vicar of the University Church. From 1896-1901 he was Vicar of Portsea, a famous 'slum' parish with a large and regimented staff (where many other future bishops served), and in 1901 was consecrated for Stepney, with a canonry and house at St Paul's [pictures (1) - Vanity Fair cartoon 1906, 'A Bishop of Decision' - and (2)]. Controversially - for he was only 44, and a 'mere' suffragan - he was appointed Archbishop of York in 1908. Perhaps mindful of his Stepney days, he spoke in the House of Lords in favour of Lloyd George's People's Budget of 1909, though this radical flash did not persist. Controversy surrounded a speech early in the First World War in which he displayed sympathy for the German emperor; the stress probably resulted in the alopecia that changed his appearance [compare photo (3) and following]. In the 1920s he promoted Christian unity and supported Prayer Book reform (a cause which failed and 'went dead' for several decades), and worked closely with fellow-Scot Randall Davidson at Canterbury, whom he succeeded in that office in 1928 until his retirement in 1942, remaining a member of the House of Lords until his death. A friend of royalty - as early as 1899 he had been a chaplain to Queen Victoria - he was much troubled by Edward VIII's intention to marry a divorcée, and relieved when others (apparently) brokered the abdication, though his speech after the event was much-criticised. Trevor Beeson's assessment is By conviction he remained unmarried, the better to give himself to his work [like his predecessor: note that Michael Gove and David Starkey are among those who have speculated, on slender evidence, that he was a latent homosexual]. Dignified, handsome, a master of ecclesiastical ceremony, he was also an able and conscientious administrator and a gracious and charming host to both high and low ... if Davidson was the statesman, Lang was the churchman. His primary biographer was J.G. Lockhart Cosmo Gordon Lang (Hodder 1949); the Wikipedia article is full and reasonably balanced; and see also Alan Wilkinson's 2004 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry, and Robert Beaken Cosmo Lang: Archbishop in War and Crisis (I.B. Tauris 2012) which accesses fresh material.
5: 1919-28 Henry Mosley (1868-1948), left
- from Newcastle-under-Lyne, he studied at Keble College
Oxford and trained for ordination at Ely College, beginning his
ministry at St Andrew Bethnal Green in 1893, moving to Trinity
College's mission at Stratford in 1898, and becoming Rector of All
Saints Poplar in 1902 - where J.C. Pringle, future Rector of our parish, was his curate - moving to
St John-at-Hackney in 1911 (where he was rural dean of Hackney and
Stoke Newington from 1917, and also a commissary for the church in
Korea). So he too had impeccable credentials for a Stepney episcopate, and was an urban priest at heart. In a farewell letter to East London churches [photograph left from that year] he wrote I will not attempt to tell you what a heartache it gives me to think of
leaving East London after 37 years ... It was a hard decision to make.
Last March, when you presented me with that beautiful motor-car, I
looked forward to using it in East London for many a day to come. But
that is not to be, and the car will now become a most treasured
farewell gift from you all. He
had been 'promoted' to become Bishop of Southwell, a mainly rural
diocese at that time (telephone 'Southwell 12'), where he remained
until retirement in 1941 - serving on the
Council for the Church and the Countryside; he died at
Kingsclere in 1948. His daughter Dame Betty
Ridley was a Church Commissioner and a leading advocate for women's ordination.
6: 1928-36 Charles Edward Curzon (1878-1954)
was born in London but attended Lancaster Royal Grammar School; after
Christ's College Cambridge and Salisbury Theological College, he was
ordained in 1901 as curate of St Andrew Fulham and then, after a short
period as secretary
of the Additional Curates Society, was Vicar of St Oswald Millhouses,
in south Sheffield, then of Goole. Returning to London in 1920, he held
another administrative post as secretary of the London Diocesan Fund,
plus a brief incumbency at St Barnabas Kensington, before his
consecration. He became Bishop of Exeter in 1936 (where he published
various pamphlets, for Lent courses and the like) until his retirement
in 1948 to Hatfield, Herts; he died in 1954. [prints (1) 1920-40 by Albert Howard Hester, (2) 1945 by Walter Stoneman; (3) painting by John Mansbridge, for Exeter
Palace]
7: 1936-52 Robert Hamilton Moberly
(1884-1978)
was a protegé of his predecessor Paget, and a member of a
distinguished clerical family: his grandfather George was a bishop, and
his father
Robert Campbell Moberly the author of the classic, still-read, works Ministerial Priesthood (1897) and Atonement and Personality (1901).
He was a scholar of New College Oxford and
trained at Cuddesdon; ordained in 1909 to a village parish in Kent (St
Margaret-at-Cliffe), in 1914 he began an 11-year stint at Benoni, in
the Transvaal, which included a period as a chaplain during the First
World War and work with the bishops of Pretoria and Johannesburg - he
continued as a commissary for Southern Rhodesia until he left Stepney.
In
1925 be became Principal of Bishops' College, Cheshunt [right], a theological college taken over from the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion
in 1909, sponsored by the Bishops of St Alban's, London, Southwark and
Chelmsford (it closed in 1969). He was consecrated for Stepney in
1936 and left in 1952 to become Dean of Salisbury, retiring in 1960
with permission to officiate in Ely until 1966; he then lived in West
Wittering, Sussex until his death in 1978. [photos from 1930s, and in later life]
10: 1968-78 [Sir] Ernest Urban Trevor Huddleston CR (1913-1998) was born in Bedford and attended Lancing College (a Woodard school in the Anglo-Catholic tradition); after Christ Church Oxford and Wells Theological College, he served a curacy at St Mark Swindon in 1937 and joined the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield two years later, taking vows in 1941. Remarkably, two years later, Fr Raymond Raynes CR, who had been recalled from the Community's mission station at Rossetenville, Sophiatown in South Africa because of stress - and was nursed by Trevor, still a novice - arranged for him to replace him there, and he became priest-in-charge, and in 1949 the Community's Provincial in South Africa (and Superintendent of St Peter's School). These were heady days for the anti-apartheid cause (predating Joost de Blank's involvement) and for the next 13 years he was at the forefront. He earned the nickname Makhalipile ('dauntless one') and the honorific title, at the 1955 African National Congress in Kliptown, Isitwalandwe. He visited the young Nelson Mandela as a young man recovering from TB, and they worked together [both pictured in later life]; he also, famously, acquired a trumpet from Louis Armstrong [pictured] for a young student Hugh Masekela. But when he published Naught for your Comfort in 1956 - which among other things pointed a finger at American support for apartheid - the Community judged his life, or at least his well-being, to be in danger and despite his protests recalled him. There followed four years as novice master at Mirfield and at their London house - frustrating, but he did at least found the Anti-Apartheid movement (later, in 1981, becoming its president). In 1960 he was elected Bishop of Masasi, Tanzania [then South Eastern Tanganyika] and he returned to the fray - only to come back eight years later to the Stepney post. Piers McGrandle Trevor Huddleston: Turbulent Priest (Continuum 2004) writes about this period in his life - Julian Scharf, priest-in-charge of this parish, was one of his chaplains. His final period in Africa - apart from short visits in retirement - was as Bishop of Mauritius and Archbishop of the (new) Province of the Indian Ocean, from 1978-83; he was awarded the United Nations' Gold Medal in 1982. Back in England once again, he worked from St James Piccadilly for the worldwide anti-apartheid cause, and had links with theological training at the ecumenical Queen's College Birmingham, before finally retiring to Mirfield. Various further honours followed, including (rather unusually for a friar - did he struggle to accept it?) Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael & St George in 1997. The simple, much-used prayer God bless Africa, guard her people, guide her leaders, and give her peace (which exists in various forms) is often attributed to him. On his death, Nelson Mandela said Father Huddleston was a pillar of wisdom, humility and sacrifice to the legions of freedom fighters in the darkest moments of the struggle against apartheid (full text, and more on his links with African leaders, in this blog by Charles Cameron).
Huddleston on Hawksmoor
In
1962 the Arts Council had mounted a major exhibition on Hawksmoor - a
stage towards his 'rehabilitation' - and in 1977 Kerry Downes, author
of both the standard and popular books on Hawksmoor (1959 and 1969)
curated a large display at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. This was
criticised by some for failing to set his masterpieces in the
context of urban renewal in the East End - at that time both Christ
Church Spitalfields and St Anne Limehouse were vulnerable. One critic
wrote St George-in-the-East ....is
well looked after and
the modern interior seems open at all times during the day and loved.
Its gaunt and magnificent exterior rises above the dereliction and
desolation of The Highway and Cable Street - great wastes of vacant
land and, now, brutal housing estates going up.
This
prompted the following letter in The Times (20 April 1977) by Bishop
Trevor and Sir John Betjeman (who among his many other involvements was a member of the Council for the Care of Churches):
In his excellent article on 'Hawksmoor's Neglected Churches' Paul Overy....goes on to plead for an examination of "the place that these great majestic hulks of stone should play in a revitalised human environment in East London". It is certainly an irony that three of these great monuments should stand in Tower Hamlets, one of the poorest boroughs in the country. This is an issue of national significance and it is becoming more urgent every day ... By a strange irony the Church of St George-in-the-East benefited most from the greatest disaster; from having been gutted in the 'blitz' in 1941, it received a large enough sum in war damage to provide for its restoration. It is a splendid parish church with a crypt large enough to make a first class community centre. But both Christ Church and St Anne's are a different case altogether. Because of their sheer magnificence of scale their renovation and restoration today demand financial resources quite beyond the capacity of the local Christian community. And, indeed, it is exceeding doubtful whether the expenditure of vast sums on buildings, however splendid, can possibly today be regarded as a priority by the Church of England as a whole. It seems to us that the time has come for a direct appeal to the nation to save these glorious churches for posterity. We believe that such an appeal in Jubilee Year would meet with a wide and generous response. It would demonstrate unequivocally that we regard the question of urban renewal as a matter of first importance to our country. It would give fresh impetus to aesthetic and cultural priorities in Dockland redevelopment. And - since we are speaking of churches - it would demonstrate our concern as a nation for the preservation and the revitalisation of those values upon which our civilisation is built. |
11: 1978-91 James (Jim) Lawton Thompson
(1936-2003), subsequently Bishop of Bath and Wells until his retirement
in 2001, was born in Birmingham and qualified as a chartered
accountant; after National Service in Germany, he studied at Emmanuel
College Cambridge and trained at Cuddesdon where Robert Runcie was
principal. After a curacy in East Ham he returned to Cuddesdon as
chaplain, and in 1971 became Rector of the new ecumenical parish of
Thamesmead before coming to Stepney. As a well-known and effective
broadcaster - for which he
received various awards - he was passionate on issues of social and
racial justice, supporting the marginalised communities of his patch;
as a result, it's said that Margaret Thatcher rejected his nomination to the see of
Birmingham - unlike his next-but-one successor! - though he always claimed to be non-party political. From
1983 until he went to Bath & Wells he was moderator of the
Committee for Relations with People of Other Faiths (as it was then
known), and co-chair of the Inter-Faith Network for the United Kingdom
from 1987-1992. In his later years he also chaired the Children's
Society and the English Churches Housing Trust. He published several
books, including Half Way: Reflections in Middle Life (1986), The Lord's Song (1990), Stepney Calling (1991 - a retrospect of his time here), Why God? (1997) and Good Morning! a Decade of Thoughts for the Day
(2003). The best obituary is by Ruth McCurry (whose husband was Rector
of Stepney, and who still lives and worships in Tower Hamlets deanery,
and works for SPCK) in The Independent on Sunday.
13: 1996-2002 John Tucker
Mugabe Sentamu
(b.1949): previously styled Bishop John, now Archbishop Sentamu, he was
born near Kampala in Uganda, the sixth of thirteen children, and
studied law at Makerere University,
becoming an advocate of the Supreme Court. He was imprisoned for 90
days for
his opposition to Idi Amin's regime before coming to Britain in 1974,
where he read theology at Selwyn College Cambridge (receiving an adult
believer's baptism) and trained for
ordination at Ridley Hall; ordained in 1979, he continued to study -
gaining a doctorate in 1984 on the 'classic' texts of the early 20th
century theologian J.K. Mozley on divine passibility, examining the
question that is both African and unversal 'must God suffer in order to
save?' - while serving variously as assistant chaplain of Selwyn, at a
remand centre, and posts in Southwark diocese, particularly around
Tulse Hill, where he became incumbent of a vibrant group of parishes
(enlivened not least by his own drumming at services), and an honorary
canon. He was consecrated for Stepney in 1996; during this time was an adviser to the Stephen Lawrence judicial enquiry, and in 2002 chaired the Damilola Taylor
review; he was also vocal on the issue of the impact of police 'stop
and search' on the black community, of which he was personally a victim
on several occasions, and on other justice issues. In 2002 he became
Bishop of Birmingham, and a mere three years later Archbishop of York.
He has received many honours, both from universities and as
'Yorkshireman of the Year' - claiming in response that his third name is
'ee-bah-gum' in reverse. Ironically, he shares this name with the
president of Zimbabwe, whom he has roundly denounced, cutting up and
eschewing his clerical collar until he has gone. As a public figure, he
is sharp and prominent (even writing a column for Murdoch's relaunched Sunday Sun),
treading a precarious course between the conservative values that he
espouses - and on which African Christians look to him to speak out -
on matters
such as sexuality, the family and multiculturalism, and the more
liberal values on social justice, including challenging oppression and corruption at
home and abroad, to which he is also committed. [Pictures selected from a huge range of past and present images!]
14: 2003-10 Stephen
John Oliver
(b.1948) trained at King's College London, and after posts in Southwell
diocese worked in religious broadcasting at the BBC from 1985-91.
He was then Team Rector of Leeds parish church (and involved in the
production of various texts as a member of the Liturgical Commission)
and from 1997 Canon Precentor of St Paul's Cathedral (planning various
high-profile services) before his appointment to
Stepney. He retired to Nottinghamshire after the death of his
beloved wife Hilary in 2010, a senior nurse, whom he himself nursed
through her long final illness, and wrote Inside Grief
(2013); he continues to preach and broadcast. One of their two sons,
Simon, is associate professor philosophical theology at Nottingham and
honorary Canon Theologian of Southwell Minster.