The Dean of Canterbury is the head of the Chapter of the Cathedral of Christ Church, Canterbury,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. The current office of

Dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

originated after the

English Reformation The English Reformation took place in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church. These events were part of the wider European Protestant Reformation, a religious and poli ...

, although Deans had also existed before this time; its immediate precursor office was the

prior Prior (or prioress) is an ecclesiastical title for a superior in some religious orders. The word is derived from the Latin for "earlier" or "first". Its earlier generic usage referred to any monastic superior. In abbeys, a prior would be low ...

of the cathedral-monastery. The previous Dean, the Very Rev. Robert Willis, was appointed in 2001 and retired on 16 May 2022, a day before his 75th birthday, and it was announced on 8 May 2022 that the Rev. Jane Hedges, former

Dean of Norwich The Dean of Norwich is the head of the Chapter of Norwich Cathedral in Norwich, England. The role is vacant since Jane Hedges' retirement on 1 May 2022. List of deans Early modern *1538–1539 William Castleton (last prior) *1539–1554 ...

, would serve as Acting Dean until a successor was appointed. The most recent Dean,

David Monteith David Robert Malvern Monteith (born 5 June 1968) is a Northern Irish Anglican priest in the Church of England and is the current Dean of Canterbury, the senior canon of Canterbury Cathedral. He was previously the Dean of Leicester since his appo ...

was appointed in 2022 and installed on December 17, 2022 and is the 40th Dean since the Reformation, though the position of Dean and Prior as the religious head of the community is almost identical so the line is unbroken back to the time of the foundation of the community by Saint Augustine in AD 597.

List of deans

820–1080

Version on show in the Cathedral (west end)

Ceolnoth Ceolnoth or Ceolnoþ (; died 870) was a medieval English Archbishop of Canterbury. Although later chroniclers stated he had previously held ecclesiastical office in Canterbury, there is no contemporary evidence of this, and his first appearance i ...

820 * Aegelwyn 830 * Alfric * Kensyn *

Maurice Maurice may refer to: People * Saint Maurice (died 287), Roman legionary and Christian martyr * Maurice (emperor) or Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus (539–602), Byzantine emperor *Maurice (bishop of London) (died 1107), Lord Chancellor and ...

* Aelfwyn 930 * Alsine 935 * Aelfwyn II 951 * Athelsine * Aegelnoth 984 (Æthelnoth, later Archbishop of Canterbury) * Egelric 1020 * Goderic 1058

Victoria County History, 1926

*Cuba, occurs 798 *Beornheard, occurs 805 *Heahfrith, occurs 813 *

, resigned 833 *Æthelwine, occurs c. 860 *Eadmund, occurs c.871 * Æthelnoth, resigned 1020 *Godric, occurs 1020, 1023 *Æthelric, resigned 1058 *Ælfric *Ælfsige *Ælfwine *Ælfwine *Kynsige *Maurice

Priors of Canterbury

About a century after becoming a monastic foundation late in the 10th century, the Cathedral started to be headed by a

rather than a dean. It would next have a dean after the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Post-Reformation Deans

Early modern

*1541–1567

Nicholas Wotton Nicholas Wotton (c. 1497 – 26 January 1567) was an English diplomat, cleric and courtier. Life He was a son of Sir Robert Wotton of Boughton Malherbe, Kent, and a descendant of Sir Nicholas Wotton, Lord Mayor of London in 1415 and 1430, ...

(the first dean; simultaneously

Dean of York Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

) *1567–1584 Thomas Godwin *1584–1597

Richard Rogers Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside (23 July 1933 – 18 December 2021) was a British architect noted for his modernist and Functionalism (architecture), functionalist designs in high-tech architecture. He was a senior partner a ...

*1597–1615

Thomas Nevile Thomas Nevile (died 1615) was an English clergyman and academic who was Dean of Peterborough (1591–1597) and Dean of Canterbury (1597–1615), Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge (1582–1593), and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge ...

*1615–1619 Charles Fotherby *1619–1625 John Boys *1625–1643

Isaac Bargrave Isaac Bargrave (1586 – January 1643) was an English royalist churchman, Dean of Canterbury from 1625 to 1643. Life Early life Isaac was the sixth son of Robert Bargrave, of Bridge, Kent, and was educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, where h ...

*1643

George Aglionby George Aglionby (c.1603–1643) was an English Royalist churchman, nominated in 1643 as Dean of Canterbury. He was a member of the Great Tew intellectual circle around Lucius Cary, and a friend and correspondent of Thomas Hobbes. Life He was the ...

*1643–1672 Thomas Turner *1672–1689

John Tillotson John Tillotson (October 1630 – 22 November 1694) was the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury from 1691 to 1694. Curate and rector Tillotson was the son of a Puritan clothier at Haughend, Sowerby, Yorkshire. Little is known of his early youth ...

*1689–1691 John Sharp (afterwards

Archbishop of York The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers ...

, 1691) *1691–1704 George Hooper *1704–1728

George Stanhope George Stanhope (5 March 1660 – 18 March 1728) was a clergyman of the Church of England, rising to be Dean of Canterbury and a Royal Chaplain. He was also amongst the commissioners responsible for the building of fifty new churches in Lo ...

*1728–1733

Elias Sydall Elias Sydall (1672–1733) was an English bishop of St David's and bishop of Gloucester. Life He was the son of a glover of Norwich. He matriculated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1688, graduating B.A. in 1692 and M.A. in 1695. He became ...

*1734–1760 John Lynch *1760–1766 William Freind *1766–1770 John Potter *1770–1771

Brownlow North Brownlow North (17 July 1741 – 12 July 1820) was a bishop of the Church of England. Early life, family and education Brownlow was born on 17 July 1741 in Chelsea, London, Chelsea, Middlesex, Great Britain, the only son of Francis North, 1st ...

*1771–1775 John Moore *1775–1781 The Hon James Cornwallis *1781–1790 George Horne *1790–1792 William Buller *1793–1797

Folliott Cornewall Folliott Herbert Walker Cornewall (bapt. 9 May 1754 – 5 September 1831) was an English bishop of three sees. Life Folliott (or Folliot) Herbert Cornewall was baptised in Ludlow on 9 May 1754, the second surviving son of Captain Frederick Cornew ...

Late modern

*1797–1809 Thomas Powys *1809–1825

Gerrard Andrewes Gerrard Andrewes (3 April 1750 – 2 June 1825) was an English churchman, Dean of Canterbury from 1809. Life He was the son of Gerrard Andrewes, vicar of Syston and St. Nicholas, Leicester, and master of the Leicester Grammar School. The younger ...

*1825–1827 Hugh Percy *1827–1845 Richard Bagot *1845–1857 William Lyall *1857–1871

Henry Alford Henry Alford (7 October 181012 January 1871) was an English churchman, theologian, textual critic, scholar, poet, hymnodist, and writer. Life Alford was born in London, of a Somerset family, which had given five consecutive generations of c ...

*1871–1895

Robert Payne Smith Robert Payne Smith (7 November 1818 – 31 March 1895) was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford and Canon of Christ Church from 1865 until 1870, when he was appointed Dean of Canterbury by Queen Victoria on the advice of Wil ...

*1895–1903 Frederic Farrar *1903–1924 Henry Wace *1924–1929 George Bell *1929–1931 Dick Sheppard *1931–1963

Hewlett Johnson Hewlett Johnson (25 January 1874 – 22 October 1966) was an English priest of the Church of England, Marxist Theorist and Stalinist. He was Dean of Manchester and later Dean of Canterbury, where he acquired his nickname "The Red Dean of Ca ...

*1963–1976 Ian White-Thomson *1976–1986 Victor de Waal *1986–2000 John Simpson *2000–2022 Robert Willis *2022 Jane Hedges acting *2022–present

(institution occurred on 17 December 2022)

References

External links

*
Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541–1857: volume 3
' {{Deans in the Church of England Deans of Canterbury