A History of the Episcopal Church (Third Revised Edition). Robert W. Prichard
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colonial episcopate.19 By 1713, such advocates had caught the attention of Queen Anne. She instructed her chief minister to prepare legislation that would have authorized consecration of bishops for the colonies. Unfortunately, she died before any action could be taken.20
With Anne’s death in 1714, any real possibility for a colonial episcopate was lost. Anne’s successor, George I, had a limited knowledge of either the English language or the English church. He delegated his right to appoint bishops to his prime minister and left other issues of religious policy to the Parliament. When the clergy convocation began in 1717 to discuss the legitimacy of George’s accession to the throne, Parliament suspended meetings of the body. The Whig party, which gained a majority in Parliament in the following year, advised the king to make that decision permanent. No further royal licenses would be issued for the assembly of the convocation until the middle of the nineteenth century, though there were informal meetings, and bishops continued to sit in the House of Lords.21
Some individuals continued, however, the campaign for a bishop after 1714. In 1718, for example, a number of clergy from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland signed a petition to the English bishops and archbishops requesting the appointment of a prelate.22 Six years later, a call by New England clergy for a bishop brought philosopher and later bishop George Berkeley (1685–1753) to Rhode Island as part of an unsuccessful effort to create a second Church of England college and, the New England clergy hoped, a resident episcopate.23 Others on both sides of the Atlantic would sound similar calls throughout the remainder of the colonial period. It would only be after the American Revolution, however, that the Whigs in the English Parliament reversed their opposition to resident bishops. So long as the American colonies were part of the British Empire, they feared that an expanded episcopate would only support the authoritarian policies of the Tory party. An episcopate in a separate nation, however, would present no challenge to liberties back at home.
| Table 1. A Partial List of Colonial Commissaries | ||
| Virginia | ||
| John Clayton | 1684–86 | (Rector, James City Parish) |
| James Blair | 1689–1743 | (Pres. W & M, 1693–1743) |
| William Dawson | 1743–52 | (Pres. W & M, 1743–52) |
| Thomas Dawson | 1752–61 | (Pres. W & M, 1755–61) |
| William Robinson | 1761–68 | (Visitor W & M, 1759–68) |
| James Horrocks | 1771–71 | (Pres. W & M, 1764–71) |
| John Carum | 1772–77 | (Pres. W & M, 1771–77) |
| (W & M=the College of William and Mary). | ||
| Maryland | ||
| Thomas Bray | 1695–1704 | |
| Christopher Wilkinson | 1716–29 | (Eastern shore only) |
| Jacob Henderson | 1716–30 | (Western shore only) |
| 1730–34 | (All of Maryland) | |
| North and South Carolina | ||
| Gideon Johnson | 1707–11 | St. Philip’s, Charleston |
| William T. Bull | 1716–23 | St. Paul’s, Colleton, S.C. |
| Alexander Garden | 1725–49 | St. Philip’s, Charleston |
| New York | ||
| William Vesey | 1715–46 | Trinity Church, New York |
| Pennsylvania (and Delaware) | ||
| Archibald Cummings | 1726–41 | Christ Church, Philadelphia |
| Robert Jenney | 1742–62 | Christ Church, Philadelphia |
| Massachusetts | ||
| Roger Price | 1730–62 | King’s Chapel, Boston |
| The Bishop of London did not appoint commissaries for New Hampshire, Georgia, Connecticut, or Rhode Island. The commissary system fell into disuse in every colony except Virginia during the episcopate of Thomas Sherlock (1748–61). Sherlock hoped that his refusal to appoint commissaries would pressure the English government to send a colonial bishop. | ||
| Sources: The Fulham Papers in the Lambeth Palace Library, ed. William Wilson Manross (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965); Classified Digest of the Record of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1701–1892, 4th ed. (London: S.P.G., 1894); Edward L. Bond and Joan R. Gundersen, The Episcopal Church in Virginia, 1607–2007 (Richmond: The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, 2007), 22–23; Olsen, “Commissaries”; Cross, The Anglican Episcopate; Joan Rezner Gundersen, “The Anglican Ministry in Virginia 1723– 1776: A Study of a Social Class,” (Ph.D. diss., Notre Dame, 1972); Carl Bridenbaugh, Mitre And Sceptre (New York: Oxford, 1962); The Episcopal Church in North Carolina 1701– 1959, ed. Lawrence Foushee London and Sarah McCulloh Lemmon (Raleigh: Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina), 87; and Frederick Lewis Weis, The Colonial Clergy of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina (Baltimore: Genealogical Pub Co., 1955). Because of the time needed to communicate from England to the colonies, there is often a discrepancy of a year in the dates in various sources. |
James Blair served in Virginia as commissary for fifty-seven years. Bishop Compton’s first appointee in Maryland, Thomas Bray (1656–1730), followed a very different course of action. Though chosen in 1696, Bray did not actually visit the colony itself until 1700. His initial efforts in Maryland were much like those of Blair in Virginia. He summoned a convocation of the clergy, charged them to teach the catechism to their parishioners, and cautioned one of their number about his scandalous conduct. He urged vestries to help in the suppression of evil conduct, and he raised an offering for the assistance of the Church of England in Pennsylvania.24 The establishment was new in Maryland, and the legislative act for which Bray successfully lobbied did not include any funds for his own salary. After less than three months in the colony, he sailed for England.