Anglican Bishop Research Articles

Die St. John-Anglikaanse kerk, Victoria-Wes

Robert Gray was commissioned in 1847 to come to South Africa as the first Anglican bishop of Cape Town. His wife Sophia, a talented architect and artist, assisted him in his work and accompanied him on most of his journeys into the interior. Wherever he established congregations she designed the churches, some of which are still to be seen at George, Knysna, Claremont (Cape), Caledon, Fraserburg, Riversdale, Worcester, Clanwilliam and Victoria West. During their last trip into the interior in 1869 Bishop Gray, his wife and Harold Welby, the resident magistrate, chose the site for the St. John's Anglican church at Victoria West and Sophia Gray designed it. The foundation stone was laid on 27 December 1869 by John Adams but the church was completed only in 1874. The stained glass windows, especially the three above the altar depicting the crucifixion and the resurrection, form a striking feature of this church.

OutRage! Hypocrisy, Episcopacy and Homosexuality in 1990s England

The brief but bitter campaign to expose the hidden homosexuality of Anglican bishops in the mid-1990s was framed as a contest about hypocrisy, with bishops – whether suspected of homosexuality or not – condemned as hypocrites, and the Church of England as hypocritical. However, the activists behind this ‘outing’, and the media which covered the story with such enthusiasm, were similarly attacked for hypocrisy. A neglected moment in recent ecclesiastical history, it reveals the ongoing importance of hypocrisy in debates about the nature of faith and the authority of the church. Still more, it sheds light on how contemporary assumptions about authenticity both intensified the perceived importance of hypocrisy and increased the chances of being accused of acting hypocritically.

Interrogating Hong Kong’s Cold War settlement: a Christian perspective

ABSTRACT This article explores Ronald Owen Hall, the Anglican bishop of Hong Kong, as an unlikely critic of the city’s Cold War settlement in the 1950s. By examining his sermons and writings and putting them into dialogue with pronouncements of the Hong Kong government and the colonial governor Alexander Grantham, it reconstructs a moral counterpoint to a sociopolitical project that pitched the colony as an economic city and as the “Berlin of the East”—an enclave of capitalist “freedom” on the doorstep of Communist China. Grantham and his administration saw the city’s Chinese population as a source of capital, labor, or security threat. Local residents, including those who recently crossed the border from mainland China, were not so much citizens as either contributors to industrial development or potential fuel for Communist menace. Hall, on the other hand, saw communism as less a threat to the colony than a sign of the society’s inability to provide for the poor and the weak. He extolled his flock to embrace Chinese nationhood instead of languishing in an atomized, profit-pursuing society. Set against the social context the colonial state created for Hong Kong, Hall offered an alternative vision that transcended Cold War binaries, capitalist values, and the nation-state logic based on his locally-embedded Christian faith.

The ‘spiritual borderlands’ of the far Canadian north: the ministries of William Carpenter Bompas and Robert McDonald in comparative context

Anglican Bishop William Carpenter Bompas and Archdeacon Robert McDonald spent nearly forty years in the far American north ‘spreading the word’ to Indigenous peoples living along the Yukon River in the second half of the nineteenth century. This article investigates their work primarily among the Gwichyà Gwich’in from their arrival in the 1860s to the mid-1870s when the 141st meridian west was established, creating an international border between Alaska and the Yukon, the United States and British America. The border’s creation had enormous implications for the Hudson Bay Company at Fort Yukon (Gwichyaa Zheh) because it was discovered to be west of the international boundary in Alaska and was moved further east into today’s Yukon Territories. The border forced Indigenous people to pick a side, American or British, and tested loyalties to their minister. The ‘spiritual borderland’ thus offers a window into the lives and ministries of two important northern missionaries during the initial contact period, as well as assessing their successes and failures among northern peoples.

British Christians and the Third Reich: Church, State, and the Judgement of Nations. By Andrew Chandler

In contrast to much existing historiography, which tends to emphasize Christian complicity or indifference to fascism, Andrew Chandler’s fascinating new monograph argues that British Christians pursued “a succession of initiatives which sought to protest against a … dangerous dictatorship and demonstrate sympathy for its victims” (pp. 51–52). We are introduced early on to the Anglican Bishop of Chichester, George Bell, the book’s main protagonist, due to his affiliation with Germany’s oppositional Confessing Church. Other important figures include Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Manchester (later Canterbury), William Temple, and the relatively sympathetic (to Nazism) Bishop of Gloucester, Arthur Headlam. The “political” pastors on the German side include ardent Nazis, such as the Reich Bishop Lüdwig Müller, whose German Church sought to eliminate all “Jewish” elements from Protestant theology; and non-conformists, such as the conservative Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemöller, and more liberal Swiss Reformed theologian, Karl Barth, whose June 1934 Barmen Declaration, which Niemöller and Bishop Bell also signed, became the founding document of the Confessing Church in its defense of traditional Protestant theology.

Hiding in Paine Sight: Jonathan Shipley's Forgotten Bestsellers and the Print Culture of the American Revolution

Historians widely acknowledge the significance of Thomas Paine's Common Sense, the most popular pamphlet in revolutionary America, in securing American independence. Yet they have almost entirely forgotten the importance of the second-most popular pamphleteer of the era, Anglican Bishop Jonathan Shipley. This essay recovers Shipley's significance while also suggesting that his works paved the way for Paine's explosive success. Shipley's two bestselling pamphlets have been forgotten because they were more pragmatic and less ideological than Paine's writings. Focused on economics and policy rather than principle, Shipley's works do not neatly fit within nationalist narratives of the American Revolution. Examining these pamphlets, and the ways that their receptions diverged over time, provides insight onto the complex relationships among print, politics, and nation in early America.

A Bishop for Virginia in 1672 Revisited

abstract: This note revisits a 2009 essay by William Gibson on a proposal to appoint an Anglican bishop for Virginia in 1672. The essay indicated how advanced the planning for the project was and gave information from an archival source of a meeting of five bishops to plan the funding and powers of the bishop. What was not clear was why the project failed. This note, using manuscripts from the Huntington Library, uses letters written in the mid-eighteenth century to explain the reasons for the failure of the project. Principal among these was the distraction of one of the major proposers of the plan, Alexander Murray, by Irish entanglements.

Noel Bamford: the first director of the Auckland School of Architecture

Auckland's keenest advocate of the Arts and Crafts movement was Frederick Noel Bamford (1881-1952) who was the first director of the Auckland School of Architecture from 1917-19. Apprenticed to carpenter and architect Edward Bartley (1839-1919) during the years that St Matthews-in-the-city was being designed, Bamford excelled at drawing and travelled to London to become a student at the Royal Institute of British Architects' School in 1904. Along with fellow expatriate architectural student Arthur Patrick Hector Pierce (1879-1918), Bamford found work in the office of Edwin Lutyens (1869-1919), famed for his romantic English country houses. Bamford returned to Auckland in 1906, and was elected an Associate of the RIBA the following year. Pierce followed, and they formed an architectural partnership which became renowned for its houses in the English Domestic Revival style adapted for New Zealand conditions. Bamford and Pierce are best known for designing the glamourous Coolangatta, 464 Remuera Road (1911, demolished in 2006) for Canadian-born Alfred Foster, a surveyor and his wife Jessie, which Peter Shaw observes is almost an exact copy of a Lutyens house at Fulbrook, Elstead, Surrey, built in 1897. As well as indicating the rapid transmission the Lutyens country house typology to New Zealand, the story of the Bamford and Pierce partnership offers an intriguing insight into the social relationships of Edwardian Auckland. Pierce's father George was prominent in the Anglican Diocese, and one of the earliest commissions that Bamford and Pierce secured was for Bishopscourt, a home for the Anglican Bishop of Auckland, known as Neligan House (1909-10). Connections to the law firm of Hesketh Richmond (Bamford's father was Edwin Bamford, (1846-1928), Registrar-General of Lands) resulted in the commission for Waione (1910), a single storey house at 22 Domett Avenue, Epsom as well as two houses for wealthy heiress Jeannie Stirling Richmond (1854-1917) for construction on her Rockwood estate. Ngahere at 74 Mountain Road (1907-8) was designed for Richmond's newly married daughter Margaret MacCormick (1884-1972) is renowned for its butterfly floor plan. Woodend at Gilgit Road (circa 1914-15) was designed as the home of Noel Bamford's brother, lawyer Dr Harry Dean Bamford, who lectured in law at Auckland University College. In 1912, the year that his Remuera house went up in flames destroying £2000 worth of Arts and Crafts furniture, Bamford founded the Arts and Crafts Club in Auckland, becoming its inaugural president. The Club was to have a key role in promoting the adaptation of the ideology of William Morris, and incorporated Māori arts into its definition of craft.

The Border, Brexit, and the Church: US Roman Catholic and Church of England Bishops’ Teaching on Migration, 2015-2019

In this article, we analyze and assess the teaching of US Roman Catholic and Church of England bishops about refugees and asylum seekers, the undocumented, and other migrants in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign with its focus on the US-Mexico border and the Brexit referendum from 2015 to 2019. First, we draw on social scientific literature to indicate how the right-wing populism of the Trump and Brexit campaigns represents immigration as a threat in a world of scarcity, making it difficult to uphold the human dignity of migrants and refugees and to maintain the solidarity needed to sustain life together. Second, we present case studies on the teaching of Anglican Bishop Paul Butler and Catholic Bishop Mark Seitz to indicate where the churches’ bishops have confronted populist doctrines of scarcity with an affirmation of God-given abundance. Third, we assess our churches’ teaching, arguing that to respond adequately to xenophobia and racism, the churches ought to follow the examples of bishops Butler and Seitz whose teaching aims not only to shape just immigration policies but to form communities of faith, and does so by inhabiting the world of Scripture alongside migrants who “read” Scripture with their lives.

The Beginnings of the Newfoundland Bible Society

Much confusion has occurred about the beginnings of the Newfoundland Bible Society, an evangelical Protestant organization in the early nineteenth century. In the 1980s, the alleged founding date of 1812 led to a public celebration of its supposed 175th anniversary. But archival research demonstrates that the founding of a local Bible Society Auxiliary in Newfoundland was a lengthy process that lasted more than 30 years until its establishment in 1846. As elsewhere, the organization united members of several Protestant churches — Anglican, Congregationalist, Methodist, and Moravian — in cooperating with each other. At the same time, this Protestant cohesion and focus on the Bible as sole religious and ethical norm evoked fear of Protestant aggression among Roman Catholics while Tractarian Anglican bishops opposed the Society’s liberal ecumenicity. Environmental factors such as the first of several fires in nineteenth-century St. John’s as well as religious conflict may have been among the factors responsible for the delayed establishment of the Bible Society Auxiliary in Newfoundland.

Chief Isaac Oluwole Delano: The Man, His Time, and His Significance

Chief Isaac Oluwole Delano was a Nigerian expert in the Yoruba language and culture who was born in the Ifo District of the Abeokuta Province on the 4th of November, 1904.2 He was born to the family of Chief Edmund Delano and Rebecca Delano (both Egba indigenes). His educational exploits started from Holy Trinity Primary School situated at Okenla Christian Village in Ifo. From there, he was moved to Lagos Grammar School under the tutelage of an Anglican Bishop, Solomon Odutola, and his principal, Reverend E. J. Evans. However, situations necessitated his transfer to Kings College in 1921 where he met with his lifetime friends and college mates; Sir Adetokunbo Ademola, Justice N.O.A. Morgan as well as Dr. Oladele Ajose, to mention a few. Having passed his Senior Cambridge Examinations in 1923, Chief Delano proceeded to successfully write his Senior Clerical Examination in 1924, which propelled him to join the civil service in the same year. However, a severe injury sustained from an accident in 1947 led to his invalidation from the civil service. Worthy of note is the fact that he never blended into the civil service bureaucracy, as his principles and religious faith were constantly tested by various practices within the service. His dream to become more lettered was not going to succeed by his involvement with the civil service alone, and he was not positioned in those days to enjoy the privilege of travelling overseas to further his education. He had studied shorthand, and his love for writing by default made him aspire to a lifetime of authoring. While belonging to a number of literary societies, he tried his hand at writing newspaper articles which were generally well-received by the public. He was able to maintain a following from there, and this fueled his desire to write more works for public consumption; he was determined to make his mark in the field of writing. His first work as an author was published in 1937 under the title The Soul of Nigeria. Tis feat gave him his first taste at writing as an occupation, and the happiness that followed suit spurred him to achieve more. Isaac Delano believed that the first one was always going to be the hardest. His first published work had landed him on top of the world, and he was determined not to rest on his oars.

Элементы мовазнаўчага даследавання ў старабеларускіх творах рэлігійнай палемікі

Traditionally, the existence of linguistic thought in the Old Belarusian written language is associated with handwritten and printed grammars, the practice of glosses and references. However, in addition to this, religious and polemical works of the late XVI – early XVII centuries provide rich material. The object of study in this article is parts of the works of Brest Synod by Piotr Skarga, The Apocrisis by Christopher Filalet, The Antirresis by Hypatius Potei, and The Palinody by Zachary Kopystensky, in which elements of linguistic research were identified. As a result of the description, comprehension and systematization of these parts, it has been established that they are most often associated with the practice of translation: individual words and expressions are explained in the margins, a textual comparison of the original source and the translation is carried out, the semantic, grammatical and word-formation aspects of the text being translated and already translated text are touched upon. The analysis of the system of names of special concepts used in the works under consideration revealed both linguistic terms already established in the scientific discourse of that time, dating back to ancient Greek and Latin traditions (антонνмія, арѳра, арѳронъ, женский родъ, имя, мѣстоимение, началное имя, сенсъ, синонима, члонки грамматичныи /antonymy, category, арѳронъ, feminine gender, name, pronoun, initial name, sense, synonym, grammatical parts), and peculiar preterms (прекладанье, прекладане, перекладъ, переложити /translation, translate/, etc.), some of which express their proximity to the Polish-speaking tradition. Among other results of the conducted research, there is the revealed connection of the text of The Apocrisis by Christopher Filаlet with the text of the polemical work of the Anglican Bishop of Salisbury John Jewel. The text excerpts with elements of linguistic research, considered in this article, allow us to link the origins of the Russian science of the theory and practice of translation with Old Belarusian religious and polemical works and indicate a high level of development of philological thinking at that time.

Australian Colonial Anglican Bishops and the Eucharist: Broughton, Perry, and Nixon

Abstract This article examines the eucharistic theology of three colonial Australian Anglican Bishops: Broughton of Sydney, Perry of Melbourne, and Nixon of Tasmania. Examination of their thinking shows that there is a multiformity of view among the three bishops. Broughton engages realism but does this in mainly receptionist manner, seeing Christ as present in the reception of the eucharist and the sacrifice of Christ commemorated and made effective through faithful reception. Perry engages a memorialist view, without realism, and sees the eucharist as a mere remembrance of a past and completed transaction, that is, the death of Christ on the cross. Nixon, under Tractarian influence, expresses a decidedly realist view where Christ is seen to be really present in the elements and a much closer connection is drawn between eucharistic remembrance and Christ’s sacrifice. The Oxford Movement is important to all three bishops, with Broughton and Nixon being influenced in a realist direction and Perry using the writings of the Tractarians to argue against realism. The multiformity of view of these bishops explains some of the multiformity of eucharistic theology which continues in the Anglican Church of Australia to this day.

America’s First Chaplain: The Life and Times of the Reverend Jacob Duché

America’s First Chaplain: The Life and Times of the Reverend Jacob Duché

History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology

History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology

The Wealth of Knowledge: Land-Grab Universities in a British Imperial and Global Context

The Wealth of Knowledge:Land-Grab Universities in a British Imperial and Global Context Caitlin P. A. Harvey (bio) the colonial legacy of the American land-grant university traced by the Land-Grab Universities (LGU) project, of public universities "built not just on Indigenous land, but with Indigenous land," reveals a far-reaching pattern of institutional development that relied on the leasing and selling of enormous tracts of expropriated Indigenous lands to raise universities' endowment capital.1 The mechanism effecting this tremendous land redistribution was the Morrill Act (1862). Yet while it was the largest, the Morrill Act was not the only legislative grant of Indigenous land made to fund higher education in the United States or among settler societies worldwide. Contextualizing the LGU findings within the larger history of land-grant universities in British settlement societies makes clear that the American land-grant phenomenon was just one episode in the expanding territoriality of settler-colonial universities. Particularly in Canada and New Zealand but also in Australia and South Africa, fledgling public universities received substantial blocks of unceded Indigenous territory as financing from their governments. The development of America's educational institutions, therefore, did not unfold in isolation from the trends established in other Anglo-dominant settler societies. When we consider the land-grant university in British imperial and global perspective, the full territoriality of land-grant universities comprises over 15 million acres spread over three continents (table 1). Settlers' provincial and federal governments sponsored land-grant institutions with the aim of applying scientific methods to agriculture, fostering technological innovation, and creating an internationally competitive yet civic-minded workforce.2 In New Zealand (Aotearoa) in 1869, for instance, the Province of Otago's legislators issued deeds of 100,000 acres for the University of Otago, followed by another 100,000 acres on the South Island (Te Waipounamu) in the 1870s.3 The Ngāi Tahu disputed this reallocation. But with the New Zealand Wars ongoing and swayed by the complaints of Otago University's largest land lessee, Robert Campbell, the colonial state evicted the Māori landholders.4 [End Page 97] Click for larger view View full resolution Table 1. Aggregate Totals of University Land by Grant and Location In England, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge had long relied on the rental income generated by landholding. Even today, the Oxbridge colleges "are among the largest institutional landowners" in land-scarce England.5 Settler societies carried on this European custom on a larger and more devastating scale. Particularly where capital was lacking from benefactions, fees, or government subsidies, the resort to land-granting was continuous. As early as 1619, the British government assigned 10,000 acres to a "Henrico College" in Virginia. Warfare with the Powhatan Confederacy and chronic underpopulation ensured that this institution was short-lived.6 Reaching forward to the nineteenth century and prior to the Morrill Act, The Constitutional History of New York indicates that in 1846 the U.S. [End Page 98] government released to "Tennessee 1,300,000 acres of public land in that state for the endowment of a college."7 This land, nearly the size of Delaware, lay to the "south and west of the Congressional reservation line." Supposedly "vacant and unappropriated Lands" existed there after the violent removal of the Cherokee.8 In nearly the same moment, one of the earliest educational land grants in British North America went to King's College, a precursor to the University of Toronto, in 1828. An Anglican bishop, John Strachan, secured 225,944 acres of valuable Crown Reserves for the new college.9 It is likely that much of this property once supported the Mississaugas of New Credit (Mississauga Ojibwa). Under the strain of recurring Indigenous-settler skirmishes, the Mississaugas ceded 250,808 acres of their land—covering most of what is now the city of Toronto and region of York—first to the British Crown in 1787 and then to the Upper Canadian government in 1805. The Toronto Purchase, as these agreements became known, followed the influx of Loyalists into Upper Canada after the American Revolutionary War.10 Following Canadian Confederation in 1867, institutions of higher learning repeated Toronto's (and, by then, also...

The Wealth of Knowledge: <em>Land-Grab Universities</em> in a British Imperial and Global Context

The Wealth of Knowledge:Land-Grab Universities in a British Imperial and Global Context Caitlin P. A. Harvey (bio) the colonial legacy of the American land-grant university traced by the Land-Grab Universities (LGU) project, of public universities "built not just on Indigenous land, but with Indigenous land," reveals a far-reaching pattern of institutional development that relied on the leasing and selling of enormous tracts of expropriated Indigenous lands to raise universities' endowment capital.1 The mechanism effecting this tremendous land redistribution was the Morrill Act (1862). Yet while it was the largest, the Morrill Act was not the only legislative grant of Indigenous land made to fund higher education in the United States or among settler societies worldwide. Contextualizing the LGU findings within the larger history of land-grant universities in British settlement societies makes clear that the American land-grant phenomenon was just one episode in the expanding territoriality of settler-colonial universities. Particularly in Canada and New Zealand but also in Australia and South Africa, fledgling public universities received substantial blocks of unceded Indigenous territory as financing from their governments. The development of America's educational institutions, therefore, did not unfold in isolation from the trends established in other Anglo-dominant settler societies. When we consider the land-grant university in British imperial and global perspective, the full territoriality of land-grant universities comprises over 15 million acres spread over three continents (table 1). Settlers' provincial and federal governments sponsored land-grant institutions with the aim of applying scientific methods to agriculture, fostering technological innovation, and creating an internationally competitive yet civic-minded workforce.2 In New Zealand (Aotearoa) in 1869, for instance, the Province of Otago's legislators issued deeds of 100,000 acres for the University of Otago, followed by another 100,000 acres on the South Island (Te Waipounamu) in the 1870s.3 The Ngāi Tahu disputed this reallocation. But with the New Zealand Wars ongoing and swayed by the complaints of Otago University's largest land lessee, Robert Campbell, the colonial state evicted the Māori landholders.4 [End Page 97] Click for larger view View full resolution Table 1. Aggregate Totals of University Land by Grant and Location In England, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge had long relied on the rental income generated by landholding. Even today, the Oxbridge colleges "are among the largest institutional landowners" in land-scarce England.5 Settler societies carried on this European custom on a larger and more devastating scale. Particularly where capital was lacking from benefactions, fees, or government subsidies, the resort to land-granting was continuous. As early as 1619, the British government assigned 10,000 acres to a "Henrico College" in Virginia. Warfare with the Powhatan Confederacy and chronic underpopulation ensured that this institution was short-lived.6 Reaching forward to the nineteenth century and prior to the Morrill Act, The Constitutional History of New York indicates that in 1846 the U.S. [End Page 98] government released to "Tennessee 1,300,000 acres of public land in that state for the endowment of a college."7 This land, nearly the size of Delaware, lay to the "south and west of the Congressional reservation line." Supposedly "vacant and unappropriated Lands" existed there after the violent removal of the Cherokee.8 In nearly the same moment, one of the earliest educational land grants in British North America went to King's College, a precursor to the University of Toronto, in 1828. An Anglican bishop, John Strachan, secured 225,944 acres of valuable Crown Reserves for the new college.9 It is likely that much of this property once supported the Mississaugas of New Credit (Mississauga Ojibwa). Under the strain of recurring Indigenous-settler skirmishes, the Mississaugas ceded 250,808 acres of their land—covering most of what is now the city of Toronto and region of York—first to the British Crown in 1787 and then to the Upper Canadian government in 1805. The Toronto Purchase, as these agreements became known, followed the influx of Loyalists into Upper Canada after the American Revolutionary War.10 Following Canadian Confederation in 1867, institutions of higher learning repeated Toronto's (and, by then, also...

Transcending the colonial gaze: Empathy, agency and community in the South Pacific photography of John Watt Beattie1

For three months in 1906, John Watt Beattie, the noted Australian photographer – at the invitation of the Anglican Bishop of Melanesia, Cecil Wilson – travelling on the church vessel the Southern Cross, photographed people and sites associated with the Melanesian Mission on Norfolk Island and present-day Vanuatu and Solomon Islands. Beattie reproduced many of the 1500-plus photographs from that trip, which he sold in various formats from his photographic studio in Hobart, Tasmania. The photographs constitute a priceless collection of Pacific images that began to be used very quickly in a variety of publications, with or without attribution. I shall examine some of these photographs in the context of the ethos of the Melanesian Mission, British colonialism in the Solomon Islands, and Beattie’s previous photographic experience. I shall argue that Beattie first exhibited a colonial gaze of objectifying his dehumanized exotic subjects (e.g. as ‘savages’ and ‘cannibals’) but with increased familiarity with them, became empathetic and admiring. In this change of attitude, I argue that he effectively transcended his colonial gaze to produce photographs of great empathy, beauty and longevity. At the same time, he became more critical of the colonial enterprise in the Pacific, whether government, commercial or church.

Examples of Anglican Ritualism in Victorian South Africa: Towards an Understanding of Local Developments and Practice

AbstractThis article examines South Africa’s contribution to the spread of Anglican ritualism in the mid-nineteenth century and seeks to add a South African voice to the growing contemporary scholarship in this area. It begins by examining the role of South Africa’s first Anglican bishop in fostering a climate conducive to ritualism. This is followed by an examination of some of the early developments which were considered ‘popish’ by colonist congregations. The second part of the study focuses on two examples of advanced ritualist parishes paying attention to ‘signs’ of medievalist revivals and the confident manner in which ritualism was discussed. The author finds that after an initial period of fairly robust antagonism towards ritualism by colonists, a general movement towards ritualist practices began to emerge. The sources consulted for this article include letters, newspaper and periodical articles, archival material and a couple of unpublished theses.

The Lambeth Appeal and the Appeal of Britain

AbstractIn 1920, the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops issued the “Appeal to All Christian People.” While much has been written on its genesis in 1920 and its impact on the later ecumenical movement and on Anglicanism, much less has been written about the relationship of the sort of ecumenism espoused by the Lambeth Appeal to the international political developments of the time. This article assesses the impact of the First World War and the Versailles Settlement on some of the assumptions underlying the Lambeth Appeal, examining how the appeal was in many ways a by‐product of a new form of internationalism, which itself was closely related to the reinterpretation of the British Empire that emerged during the war.