"First published in 2002 by SCM Press. This paperback edition published in 2003". -- verso of t.-p.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
"The purpose of this book is twofold. It provides brief portraits of forty-eight bishops who were in office from about the time of the 1832 Reform Bill, when the Church of England as well as the nation as a whole entered a period of continuous change, until the final years of the twentieth century." -- Intro., p. [1].
Beeson "ends by asking why such able and interesting bishops are now in short supply and wonders whether the hectically busy managerial role assumed by the bishops of the new millennium represents a betrayal of the Episcopal office and a consequent weakening of the Church's witness in an incredibly secularized society. Looking not far ahead, the likely impact of women bishops is also discussed". -- back cover.
Contents: Acknowledgements / TB -- Introduction -- The aristocrats and the courtiers -- The scholars -- The statesmen -- The prophets -- The pastors -- The controversialists -- The headmasters -- The church reformers -- The social reformers -- The missionaries -- The evangelists -- The odd men out -- The pioneers : looking ahead -- Bibliography -- Index.
OTCH Note: The bishops described are in order of discussion: Edward Stuart Talbot, William Cecil, Charles Sumner, Cosmo Gordon Lang, Robin Woods, Connop Thirlwall, Joseph Barber Lightfoot, Mandell Creighton, Kenneth Kirk, Ian Ramsey, Archibald Campbell Tait, Randall Davidson, William Temple, George Bell, John Percival, Edward Lee Hicks, John A.T. Robinson, E.R. (Ted) Wickham, Edward King, William Walsham How, Edward Woods, Launcelot Fleming, Herbert Hensley Henson, Ernest William Barnes, Frederick Temple, George Ridding, Neville Gorton, Geoffrey Fisher, Edward Stanley, Charles James Blomfield, Samuel Wilberforce, Leslie Hunter, James Fraser, Brooke Foss Westcott, Charles Gore, George Augustus Selwyn, John William Colenso, Charles Mackenzie, Frank Weston, Joost de Blank, Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram, Walter Carey, Christopher Chavasse, Cuthbert Bardsley, Henry Phillpotts, T.B. Strong, Mervyn Stockwood and Douglas Feaver.
"Copyright A.R. Mowbray and Co. Limited 1959. First published in 1959. Third impression, 1963". -- verso of t.-p.
"[T]he essential quality of Anglicanism is to be found in a temper of mind -- almost an ethos -- which is easily recognizable even if it is less easy to define. If this is true then the essays in this book have a real importance, for they describe, in different ways, what the contributors found so attractive in the Anglican Church that they chose to give their allegiance to it rather than to any other part of the Catholic Church. .... These 'converts' did not choose Christianity lightly, nor did they find their home within the Anglican Communion without prayerful thought. The personal experiences which they describe so movingly have therefore a very real importance for us all:". -- Foreword.
Contents: Foreword / Robert Londin i.e. Robert W. Stopford, Bishop of London -- Robert Gordon Arthur -- Anthony Barker -- Joost de Blank -- Emod Brunner -- Selwyn Gummer -- Herbert Arthur Hodges -- Roland Koh -- Emmanuel Amand de Mendieta -- William Moelwyn Merchant -- Hugh William Montefiore -- John William Reinhardt -- Leonard Mayo Schiff -- Athene Seyler -- William Purcell Witcutt -- John Wren-Lewis.
Colophon: Printed in Great Britain by A..R. Mowbray and Co. Limited in the City of Oxford.