BACK TO ENGLAND

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 367, 5 July 1946, Page 9

BACK TO ENGLAND

Wellington’s Bishop Appointed Dean of Norwich HE announcement from London that the Bishop of Wellington, the Rt. Rev. Herbert St. Barbe Holland, had been appointed Dean of Norwich, possibly seemed strange to many people, Anglicans as well as others, in the sense that on the surface it suggested a move to a lower office. The layman having little knowledge of the workings of church administration, we asked the bishop to tell us something about his new charge. "Very well, you ask the questions, and T’'ll do my best to answer them," he said. We asked, first, who made the appointment. "At the time of the Reformation," the bishop said, "the King reserved the right to make these appointments; he still makes them." "And what are the duties of an English dean?" "They involve a great deal more than do the functions of his counterpart in New Zealand. It is really a rather wonderful position; quite an independent one. The dean is in full charge of the cathedral, its services and its life generally. He has wide administrative power and responsibility, for he is in charge of a place that is not only the centre of the diocese but the centre of community life." In the old dioceses of England the cathedral has always been independent of the bishop, who goes there as a visitor, and as nothing else. And Norwich is an old Norman-Benedictine foundation -the stone was laid in 1096. At the reformation, Bishop Holland said, the old cathedrals carried on the same tradition; but the position of abbot or prior was succeeded by that of dean. The dean and chapter are responsible for the cathedral. Norwich, for instance, has a big staff -the dean, three residentiary canon, 22 honorary canons, two minor canons (a precentor and a sacrist), a high steward (in this case the Earl of Leicester); a chapter clerk (a layman who attends to administrative details), a choir school, with headmaster, and a cathedral surveyor. Two Sees Now Vacant Bishop Holland told us that he greatly regretted leaving New Zealand. He came from England in 1936 to succeed the Rt. Rev. Dr. T. H. Sprott, and was previously Archdeacon of Warwick and rector of Hampton Lucy in the diocese of Coventry. He is the second bishop to accept an appointment in England in a little over a year. In April of last year the Rt. Rev. G. V. Gerard, formerly Bishop of Waiapu, accepted the Bishop of Sheffield’s offer of the parish of Rotherham, Yorkshire. He had resigned his see early in 1944 on resuming active duty as a military chaplain, after previously serving overseas. The successor to Bishop Gerard, the Rt. Rev. G. C. Cruickshank, resigned

a month or so ago on medical advice, and, with the appointment of Bishop Holland as Dean of Norwich, two bishoprics have thus become vacant in New Zealand within a short time. Bishop Holland told us he looked forward with sadness and some ‘dread to parting with his two dogs-fine types of Irish setter and Labrador retriever. ‘Tm afraid they will have to be put to sleep," he said. "They have had about 12 years of an easy happy life, but I don’t think they would stand up to the voyage through the tropics. Better to put them to sleep quietly than have them reach England ill as well as old." Norwich to-day-the bishop was not sure whether it had suffered any bomb damage-more than any other cathedral except Durham, retains the appearance and characteristics of a great AngloNorman abbey church, say Harry Batsford and* Charles Fry in their The Cathedrals of England. Victorian restoration reduced the west front to insignificance, but the long north and south elevations of the nave rise like cliffs, with stratabands of arches, arcades and windows. The eastern limb is the most beautiful part of the building. The Nor- man tower is rich and magnificent. It is surmounted by a tall spire that forms a dignified landmark over the surrounding country. Bishop Holland will leave for England by the Rimutaka early in September.