Primate of England to be Made a Baron

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 502, 3 November 1928, Page 9

Primate of England to be Made a Baron

DR. RANDALL DAVIDSON LONGEST PRIMACY SINCE REFORMATION (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) Reed. 12.30 p.m. LONDON, Friday. A barony is to be conferred on the retiring Primate, the Most Rev. Randall Thomas Davidson. Archbishop of Canterbury since 1903. The 25th anniversary of the enthronement of Dr. Davidson as Archbishop of Conterbury was celebrated on February 6 last. _ To find a parallel to Dr. Davidson s occupancy of the Chair of St. Augustine one has to go back 400 years to the Primacy Of William War ham, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1503 to 1532. Dr. Davidson’s Primacy is thus the longest since the Reformation, and it has witnessed some of the most remarkable changes and developments in the Church of England. Among these, the most important is perhaps the extension of the Anglican Communion throughout the world.

When the Lambeth Conference meets in 1930 nearly 400 bishops will be summoned and each one of these looks to his Grace as a spiritual guide and leader. The work of Prayer Book revision has been the most momentous enterprise of the Archbishop’s Primacy. He has been intimately concerned with it from the beginning, for he was a member of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline, which resulted in 1905 in Royal Leters of Business being issued to Convocation by King Edward. With splendid courage the Archbishop laboured and fought for its accomplishment through opposition and criticism, and sometimes misrepresentation, without once being tempted to a heated retort. The rejection of the Prayer Book measure by the House of Commons called out from men of all parties tributes of devotion to and affection for the Archbishop. Throughout his long Primacy he has remained the centre of unity for the wbnu *—” ' * man of

/hole Anglican Communion. He is am« >f surpassing industry, despite the fa> :hat since he was a young man he hj suffered from the effects of a gunshi

wound which inflicted permanent injury to the sciatic nerve. Indeed, some 26 years ago, when the See of London fell vacant, he begged to be excused translation to it on the ground that his health would not be equal to the strain involved. Dr. Davidson was 80 years old on Apr'l 7 last.