Press release from the Prime Minister’s Office. There is more on the St Albans diocesan website.
Appointment of Suffragan Bishop of Hertford: 24 November 2022
The King has approved the nomination of The Venerable Dr Jane Mainwaring, Archdeacon of St Albans, in the Diocese of St Albans, to the Suffragan See of Hertford, in the Diocese of St Albans.
From: Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street
Published 24 November 2022
The King has approved the nomination of The Venerable Dr Jane Mainwaring, Archdeacon of St Albans, in the Diocese of St Albans, to the Suffragan See of Hertford, in the Diocese of St Albans, in succession to The Right Reverend Dr Michael Beasley following his appointment as Bishop of Bath and Wells.
Background
Jane was educated at Leeds University and Trinity College, University of Wales, and trained for ministry on the East Anglian Ministerial Training Course. She served her title at St Gregory’s Sudbury, in the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, and in 2001 she was ordained Priest
In 2003, Jane was appointed Team Vicar of St Mark’s Hitchin, in the Diocese of St Albans, and from 2015 she also served as Rural Dean.
Jane took up her current role as Archdeacon of St Albans in 2020.
This is not a comment on the worthiness of an individual – whom I do not know.
Rather a question or two.
In many dioceses, I think that Suffragans often operate as de-facto archdeacons as well. Roles are being redefined and a bishop/archdeacon in one place is very different from that in another.
Also, if you know that a person is good for a particular role, then longevity in post is not necessarily a issue. Look at the career path of ++Cantuar… he was both dean and diocesan for very short periods of time. And… he has done a pretty decent job so far!!
I do know Jane and the diocese pretty well (although I’m not there currently) and can see what a good appointment this is. I think it’s important to say that Jane is probably not a ‘typical archdeacon’, if that means “zooming around, rushing around answering queries, filling clergy posts etc” – I’m sure she can do all that but when people think of Jane it’s her pastoral gifts and experience I’m sure they think of – warm, really easy to talk to, bishop’s selection advisor on the pastoral side of things etc. Very perceptive, but not a pushover! IMO there’s… Read more »
I don’t know Dr Mainwaring all that well but I would think she’s very much a safe pair of hands; this seems to be very much the key requirement for any senior appointment nowadays.
Jane will be the 32nd woman bishop to be appointed in the Church of England, which is excellent. Using Peter Owen’s useful schedule of vacant suffragan sees, and being something of a watcher of episcopal appointments, there have been 102 nominations to suffragan sees since April 2009. Excluding nine, +Dover, +Maidstone, +Islington, +Ebbsfleet (twice), +Beverley (twice), +Richborough, and +Crediton (who was translated to +Plymouth), there were 93 ‘conventional’ suffragan appointments made in the period. Of these 35 (38%) had been archdeacons, 35 (38%) parish (including cathedral) priests, and 23 (24%) were nominated from other roles, often diocesan positions, TEIs, and… Read more »
The Archdeacon of Cleveland was appointed Bishop of Whitby in 2014; he covers the same territory as bishop that he covered as archdeacon.
Yes, I just took the recent precedents!
As a precedent from much longer ago, in 1964 Graham Leonard went from being Archdeacon of Hampstead to being Bishop Suffragan of Willesden. The change of job did not necessitate a change of residence.
It did require him to move house in the end, though. When the Area Scheme came in, the Archdeaconry of Hampstead became the area of the Bishop of Edmonton, and Graham Leonard had to move to LB Brent, pinching the Rectory of Christ Church Brondesbury in Willesden Lane (which is still the residence of the Bishop of Willesden). And I went from being Archdeacon of Northolt to being Bishop of Willesden in 2001 (which is the same Area). Which may or may not be a good precedent! Tom Butler made a similar move two before me.
I have only just seen this. Thank you. My source of information was Peart-Binns’ biography of Leonard which, whilst stating that Leonard did not have to move house at his consecration, does report the eventual move to Willesden Lane.
When you get to my age, 2014 is recent!
I have had some significant interaction with the current Bishop of Whitby, and also the Bishop of Reading. In my view both are excellent bishops. And Bishop Olivia was also an exceptional Archdeacon (I was Area Dean and she did a couple of things very few know about which rate highly for me, and there were lots of appointments where I saw her in action).
Appointments are made on the basis of discernment. Since God is all-knowing, He knows when someone is ready regardless of any time (or lack of it) in a particular post.
Of course, if appointments aren’t based on discernment then that should be admitted in which case, if selection is being done by fallible human talents, experience becomes much more relevant.
Kate, I would say yes to both of your propositions, at the same time, holding them in tension with each other.
Rather like the inspiration of scripture, actually.
If God is all-knowing, why does He choose some clerics who have subsequently been banned because of sexual abuse? Surely selection is always made on the basis of fallible human talents, despite what other fancy theological terminology might be used.
I see one thing I really like in this bio: lots and lots of parish experience.
I seem to remember a few years back in my Anglican days a review of Bishops Ministry Paper was produced by the Church of England and in the body of that paper it looked at the role of Suffragan Bishops and commented that there had been a tendency by some Diocesan Bishops to simply see the needs of their own Diocese in making such appointments, and that in future in making such appointments, they had to think of the needs of the wider Church and not just their own diocese and treat Suffragan Bishop roles as potential training roles for… Read more »
Charles Smyth in his biography of Cyril Garbett (Hodder and Stoughton, 1960) makes a distinction between an episcopal curate and an episcopal curate-in-charge. Wikipedia distinguishes bishops ‘deployed in suffragan roles across their diocese’ from ‘area bishops’. I think that Charles Smyth and the compiler of the Wikipedia entry are making the same point.
Are there many dioceses which still employ the Area Scheme for Suffragan bishops? I can think of Oxford, Chichester used to but abolished the Area Bishops scheme, are there any others, I wonder? What a great man Cyril Garbett was, exhausted by Southwark, he recuperated at Winchester before going on to his archiepiscopal ministry at York. It was claimed that one of his most adventurous achievements was to pass his driving test and it is said that he never recited the Lord’s Prayer without having the text in front of him. That being the case, did he always like Hensley… Read more »
Thank you. Parts of William Temple’s funeral in 1944 can be watched on Pathé. Garbett took a major part, along with Lord Lang and Hewlett Johnson. I can recall from my formative years in the Manchester diocese the Suffragan Bishop of Hulme, Kenneth Ramsey. He was one of the last bishops to be consecrated by Garbett, perhaps the very last. That was in 1953. The point is made in Charles Smyth’s book that Cyril Garbett and Kenneth Ramsey had both been pupils at Portsmouth Grammar School. At the time of Donald Coggan’s consecration in January 1956 Garbett had just died,… Read more »
We can only speculate about what difference it would have made to the Established Church if George Bell rather than Geoffrey Fisher had succeeded Wiilliam Temple at Canterbury? Any news on the progress being made with regard to the erection of Bishop Bell’s statue for the west front of Canterbury cathedral? It didn’t take this long before Queen Elizabeth II was in situ on the west front of York Minster. Well done the Northern Province.
William Temple himself believed that Geoffrey Fisher would succeed him at Canterbury. A year or so before his sudden death Temple discussed reitirement with his wife, and said he wanted to ‘let Geoffrey have his whack’ (see the biography of Temple by Iremonger). Shortly after Temple’s death Cyril Garbett wrote to Lord Lang to express the view that Fisher was ‘the only possibilty for Canterbury’ (Smyth, previously cited).
Not strictly the subject under discussion here, but Garbett was successively Vicar of St Mary’s Portsea, Portsmouth, Bishop of Southwark, Bishop of Winchester and, finally, Archbishop of York. As a small girl, my late mother met Garbett on one of his country walks, for which he was famous, and was somewhat daunted by this, as she found him, slightly forbidding man wearing unusual clothes! Years later, she was confirmed by him as Bishop of Southwark. I have a photograph of Garbett as Bishop of Winchester leading on foot behind the crucifer a long funeral procession along the country lane past… Read more »
He took part, of course, in the Coronation in 1953.
His sole named role in the 1953 Coronation, as far as I can see from the order of service, was to lead ‘…all the Bishops, with the rest of the Peers and all the People [in following] every part of the Benediction [of the Queen by the Archbishop of Canterbury] with a loud and hearty Amen.’ More Coronation minutiae to come, no doubt, over the next six months, but may I be the first to wonder whether the Coronation ceremonies’ traditional setting within the BCP Communion Service will be maintained? It hardly seems possible with the expressed need to reduce… Read more »
According to their websites, the dioceses of Chelmsford, Leeds, Lichfield, London, Oxford and Southwark all have area schemes with area bishops.