Thinking Anglicans

Rose Hudson-Wilkin to be next Bishop of Dover

Press release from Number 10

Suffragan Bishop of Dover: 28 June 2019
Queen approves appointment of the Reverend Prebendary Rose Hudson-Wilkin to the Suffragan See of Dover.

Published 28 June 2019
From: Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street

The Queen has approved the appointment of the Reverend Prebendary Rose Hudson-Wilkin, BPhil Ed, Hon LLD, Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons and Priest in Charge of St Mary-at-Hill, in the Diocese of London to the Suffragan See of Dover, in the Diocese of Canterbury, in succession to the Right Reverend Trevor Willmott, MA, who resigned on 31st May 2019.

Rose was born and raised in Jamaica. She was educated at Montego Bay High School for Girls and later at Birmingham University. She trained with the Church Army and was commissioned in 1982 as an Evangelist; she later trained for ordination at Queens Theological College on their part-time course, ordained deacon in 1991 and ordained priest in 1994 serving her title at St Matthew’s Church, Willenhall Road in the Diocese of Lichfield.

For sixteen and a half years she served as a priest in Hackney (Holy Trinity with St Philip, Dalston and All Saints, Haggerston). In 2007 she was appointed as a Chaplain to Her Majesty the Queen and in 2010, she became the first woman appointed to the position of the 79th Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons. In November 2014, she took on the additional responsibility as Priest in Charge of city Church, St Mary-at-Hill near Monument. She is an Honorary Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral and a Priest Vicar of Westminster Abbey.

She has previously served as a member of the General Synod of the Church of England and also as one of the Panel of Chairs of the Synod. She has twice represented the Church of England at the World Council of Churches (in Zimbabwe & Brazil); she served as its priest representative on the Anglican Consultative Council for 9 years. She also served as a Selection Secretary for the Church of England, helping to select men and women seeking to test their vocation to the ministry. She does numerous preaching and speaking engagements nationally (and occasionally overseas). She was a member of the Broadcasting Standards Commission and has wide experience of media engagement including some religious broadcasting.

She is married to The Reverend Kenneth Wilkin, a Prison Chaplain and they have three adult children.

The Canterbury diocesan website states that her consecration will be on 19 November 2019.

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DAVID CRAIG
DAVID CRAIG
5 years ago

A great appointment; the diocese will be greatly blessed and enhanced by her ministry – and just in time for Lambeth 2020.Her chaplaincy role to Lambeth 2008 was greatly appreciated by delegates and staff alike!

Father David
Father David
5 years ago

Looks like Speaker Bercow will be on the look out for a new Chaplain. The Bishop of Dover is virtually Diocesan of Canterbury in all but name, a huge responsibility for the new incumbent. Does the Bishop of Dover still exercise pastoral oversight of the Channel Islands or has that little local difficulty been sorted long since?

Paul
Paul
Reply to  Father David
5 years ago

I understand that Bp Trevor is remaining in charge of the Channel Islands, so Bp Rose will not have that responsibility.

Rowland Wateridge
Rowland Wateridge
Reply to  Father David
5 years ago

There is an Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission currently considering the issue under the chairmanship of Lord Chartres, former Bishop of London. On 3 June, the Church of England issued a press release on the work of the Commission which has already taken evidence on the Channel Islands. Further developments now awaited.

Peter S
Peter S
5 years ago

The 100th woman to be appointed a bishop in the Anglican Communion.

duncan dormor
duncan dormor
5 years ago

An outstanding appointment. A great priest – passionate, bold, deeply pastoral and prophetic.

Tony Bellows
Tony Bellows
5 years ago

There’s a vocal contingent in some Jersey churches that would like to delay the change needed in Canon Law on women bishops for as long as possible and they’ve rather cleverly managed to link that to the Commission regarding the status of the Channel Islands after Winchester.

http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2019/06/women-bishops-in-jersey-blocked-by.html

Rowland Wateridge
Rowland Wateridge
Reply to  Tony Bellows
5 years ago

Given that the Bishop of Winchester was clearly right to act on a safeguarding matter – and didn’t allow it to be ‘swept under the carpet’ as is so often complained of about bishops in these cases – and given that the Dean of Jersey apologised and his suspension was withdrawn, I have never understood how this matter was allowed to fester in the way that it did, leading to the breakdown between the Channel Islands and the Diocese to which they had been attached for centuries. But, as already stated, initially at least, this matter doesn’t transfer to Bishop… Read more »

Tony Bellows
Tony Bellows
Reply to  Rowland Wateridge
5 years ago

Part of the problem was that the Bishop of Winchester didn’t handle the dispute well, and part was that there was a vocal active band who took the Dean’s side. The Commission’s report so far says that staying in Winchester is not an option: “The SCOC considered carefully whether there was advantage in an interim arrangement through which the Deanery might be attached to another diocese for a limited period of time. The SCOC acknowledged that one of the principal reasons for the breakdown of relations between the Channel Islands and Winchester was through the actions taken by the Bishop… Read more »

Rowland Wateridge
Rowland Wateridge
Reply to  Tony Bellows
5 years ago

The population of the Channel Islands is almost double that of the Isle of Man which has its own diocesan bishop. So might the same set-up be appropriate for the CIs?

It seems paradoxical to me in the context of the many complaints of inaction by bishops about safeguarding, that in this instance the bishop who took action is seen by some as the villain of the piece. Was he unduly heavy-handed, or is it a case that the Dean’s vocal supporters don’t/ didn’t respect the bishop’s authority?

Tony Bellows
Tony Bellows
Reply to  Rowland Wateridge
5 years ago

The report notes: The establishment of a Diocese of the Channel Islands has some attraction and would certainly complement the Bailiwicks’ status as Crown Dependencies. The two deaneries have given each other significant moral support during recent years and there are synergies that make this superficially an attractive option, including the fact that: (a) both Deans go to the Archdeacons’ conference and receive the conference papers; (b) attendance at General Synod is shared between the two Deans; (c) the Channel Islands have a long shared constitutional history. There are, however, differences between the two Deaneries. (a) The Dean of Jersey… Read more »

Rowland Wateridge
Rowland Wateridge
Reply to  Tony Bellows
5 years ago

With all these local complications, they want to leave Winchester after 500 years purely on the strength of a disagreement with a bishop relatively new in ‘post’? Is there no spirit of reconciliation? Anyway, from what you say, the Commission already feels that severance from Winchester will happen. It’s certainly a sad saga, and doesn’t seem to reflect credit on any of the parties.

Tony Bellows
Tony Bellows
Reply to  Rowland Wateridge
5 years ago

My feelings exactly! Personally I think we should go back to the Bishop of Coutances! More of the report: “It was accepted that travel was easy to Winchester, that there was an historic relationship going back several centuries and that the diocese was traditionally a conservative one. However, it is with some reluctance that we have to conclude that this will not be possible during the episcopacy of Bishop Timothy Dakin. The primary cause for the split from Winchester (as far as Jersey is concerned) was undoubtedly the suspension of Dean Key. The clergy and laity of Deanery of Guernsey… Read more »

Rowland Wateridge
Rowland Wateridge
Reply to  Tony Bellows
5 years ago

Coutances might involve some denominational differences!

Like much else in the C of E, we will have to wait and see what happens. But what a pity it has come to this.

Tony Bellows
Tony Bellows
Reply to  Rowland Wateridge
5 years ago

The Dean of Jersey Mike Keirle is on BBC Radio Jersey today saying that changes in Canon law are being drafted but will come in as part of the larger picture of the CIs relationship with the UK, and they are a “priority” and will come in soon once the final recommendations of the Archbishops Commission are agreed. I’m guessing within two years at the speed it works. The good news is the Dean has stated in public that he is wholeheartedly in support of that change. He also said that he didn’t understand why nothing had been done under… Read more »

Michael
Michael
5 years ago

It was *interesting* to be at a dinner just a stonesthrow from the Houses of Parliament on Friday evening, when Rose was congratulated – twice – on her appointment. During the applause, the body language of a long-standing occupant of The Wash House expressed, to my mind at least, less than unfettered enthusiasm for the new occupant of the See of Dover. Was this a case of ‘Hell hath no fury than an over-influential functionary sidelined’?

peter kettle
peter kettle
Reply to  Michael
5 years ago

What is The Wash House?

Michael
Michael
Reply to  peter kettle
5 years ago

Peter, it’s the best defended silo in the whole of the Church of England, where the names of those ready to be made bishops are secretly received and then processed according to undisclosed criteria. It is where one of the recommendations of the O’Donovan Commission (which scrutinised episcopal appointments in the C of E), i.e. that the list of those who are episcopally ready should be made more widely available is being firmly resisted. Other than that, it is a building in the grounds of Lambeth Palace, once the place of washing dirty linen (but never in public) in former… Read more »

Marion Owen
Marion Owen
5 years ago

Has anyone else picked up on the reaction of women clergy in the Stepney area to this news – especially in view of their more-or-less widespread delight that their new Bishop is being consecrated later this morning?

Father David
Father David
5 years ago

In addition to words of congratulation on Thinking Anglicans – Rose Hudson-Wilkin has just been praised to the high heavens in the House of Commons by both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition at PMQs.

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