1. Arthur Mervyn Stockwood was a Church of England bishop who served as vicar of St Matthew's Church, Moorfields, then of Great St Mary's, Cambridge, and finally as Bishop of Southwark, retiring in 1980.
13 Facts About Mervyn Stockwood
1. 2.
Mervyn Stockwood was introduced to Anglo-Catholic worship at All Saints' Church, Clifton, which reinforced his love of ritual and sense of the dramatic.
3.
Mervyn Stockwood was educated at the Downs School and Kelly College in Tavistock, Devon; in 1931 he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, and graduated in 1934.
4.
Mervyn Stockwood was a curate, then the vicar, of St Matthew's Church, Moorfields, Bristol, for nineteen years.
5.
Mervyn Stockwood was missioner to Blundell's School in Tiverton, Devon.
6.
Mervyn Stockwood encouraged both the radical and conservative wings of the church.
7.
Mervyn Stockwood however did not hesitate to send the police to close an Anglo-Catholic church in Carshalton.
8.
Mervyn Stockwood was liberal in his view of the morality of homosexual relationships, favoured homosexual law reform and included homosexual couples among the guests at his dinner parties.
9.
Mervyn Stockwood was adept at making unusual and radical, but usually highly successful, appointments.
10.
Later Mervyn Stockwood chose David Sheppard as Bishop of Woolwich in 1969, Hugh Montefiore as Bishop of Kingston in 1970, Michael Marshall to Woolwich in 1975 and Keith Sutton to Kingston in 1978.
11.
Mervyn Stockwood appeared on the BBC chat show Friday Night, Saturday Morning on 9 November 1979, with Christian broadcaster Malcolm Muggeridge, arguing that the film Monty Python's Life of Brian was blasphemous.
12.
Mervyn Stockwood told John Cleese and Michael Palin at the end of the discussion that they would "get [their] thirty pieces of silver".
13.
In 1980 Mervyn Stockwood retired and went to live in Bath.