27 Facts About Cuthbert Bardsley

Cuthbert Killick Norman Bardsley was an Anglican bishop and evangelist who served as Bishop of Croydon from 1947 to 1956 and Bishop of Coventry from 1956 to 1976.

Cuthbert Bardsley was born at Ulverston in Cumbria on the 28 March 1907, the youngest of six children of a Church of England vicar, Norman Bardsley, and his wife Annie Killick.

In 1909 his father became vicar of Lancaster where Bardsley spent his childhood.

Cuthbert Bardsley came from a family steeped in the tradition of Anglicanism who, within three generations, produced 29 priests and three bishops.

Cuthbert Bardsley was educated at Summer Fields School, Oxford and entered Eton College in 1919.

At New College, Oxford, Cuthbert Bardsley read Modern Greats enlisting wholeheartedly in the activities of the Oxford Group, an evangelical grouping founded by Frank Buchman that called for a moral crusade into society.

Ultimately Cuthbert Bardsley distanced himself from Buchman but throughout his years as a pastor he retained an evangelical zeal to take the Christian message into all parts of society.

Cuthbert Bardsley was not an enthusiast of the Oxford Group believing that the zealousness of some of the adherents could lead to a situation of Schism.

Cuthbert Bardsley was part of an influential in-take and contemporaries include: Launcelot Fleming, later Bishop of Norwich, Forbes Horan later Bishop of Tewkesbury and Geoffrey Tiarks, Bishop of Maidstone.

Clayton's living of All Hallows-by-the-Tower was in the City of London and it was to the East End of London in 1932 initially as a deacon and then upon ordination in 1933 as a curate that Cuthbert Bardsley first served his ministry.

Cuthbert Bardsley concluded that the movement had strayed from its founding principles of Jesus as Saviour into a more general purpose on morality and shortly after ended his formal association.

Cuthbert Bardsley returned to London in 1940 as vicar of St Mary Magdalene Woolwich, where he was joined by his sister Dorothy who was to become his helper and companion for the next thirty two years.

Cuthbert Bardsley did not believe in sitting in a church and waiting for people to come to him.

Cuthbert Bardsley spent four years at Woolwich, later moving to the position of Provost of Southwark Cathedral on London's South Bank in 1944.

Cuthbert Bardsley's bishop, Bertram Simpson was an admirer of the notion of 'Industrial Mission' and saw Cuthbert Bardsley as the ideal man to lead an evangelical mission into the docks, wharfs, markets, factories and offices of the South Bank.

Cuthbert Bardsley remained as Bishop of Croydon for nearly nine years combining pastoral duties in Croydon with frequent visits overseas in support of his priests working with the Forces.

Croydon had been badly bombed during the war and Cuthbert Bardsley involved himself in the reconstruction that was needed.

Cuthbert Bardsley realised that the Church needed to provide practical leadership if it was to remain relevant to many peoples' lives that had been disrupted by the War and the long period of austerity that followed.

The huge workload that Cuthbert Bardsley undertook started to effect his health and after a visit to Kenya in 1952 he suffered a minor thrombosis necessitating a period in hospital and convalescence.

Cuthbert Bardsley was not a man to rest for long and returned to work too early subsequently developing further thromboses and a duodenal ulcer, the intense pain of which reoccurred for the rest of his life.

Cuthbert Bardsley was appointed a CBE in the Birthday honours List in 1952.

Cuthbert Bardsley oversaw its renewal as a centre of Christian teaching.

Regular conferences to which community leaders were invited were arranged as Cuthbert Bardsley continued to seek a central place for The Church in peoples' lives.

Cuthbert Bardsley was chairman with a purpose to measure, evaluate and propagate news of evangelist enterprises.

Cuthbert Bardsley remained a committed evangelist for the remainder of his ministry.

In 1972 Cuthbert Bardsley married Ellen Mitchell and in May 1976 he resigned the see at Coventry.

Cuthbert Bardsley was an enthusiastic amateur oil painter, and several of his works have appeared at auction room sales in recent years.