Derek Alec Rawcliffe

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(8 July 1921 – 1 February 2011) was an English

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

bishop and author. He served as the Bishop of the New Hebrides and the

Scottish Episcopal Church The Scottish Episcopal Church (; ) is a Christian denomination in Scotland. Scotland's third largest church, the Scottish Episcopal Church has 303 local congregations. It is also an Ecclesiastical province#Anglican Communion, ecclesiastical provi ...

Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway The Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway is the ordinary (diocesan bishop) of the Scottish Episcopal Church Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway. Brief history When the dioceses of Glasgow and Galloway were combined in 1837, Michael Russell, the then ...

Life and ministry

Rawcliffe was born in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

, the son of a tobacconist, on 8 July 1921. He was brought up in

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city, non-metropolitan district and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West England, South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean ...

and educated at

Leeds University The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed ...

Who's Who A Who's Who (or Who Is Who) is a reference work consisting of biographical entries of notable people in a particular field. The oldest and best-known is the annual publication ''Who's Who (UK), Who's Who'', a reference work on contemporary promin ...

2008: London,

A & C Black A & C Black is a British book publishing company, owned since 2002 by Bloomsbury Publishing. The company is noted for publishing ''Who's Who'' since 1849 and the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' between 1827 and 1903. It offers a wide variety of boo ...

, 2008 He was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are Consecration in Christianity, consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the religious denomination, denominationa ...

deacon in 1944 and priest in 1945. After a

curacy A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' () of souls of a parish. In this sense, ''curate'' means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy who are ass ...

at Claines St George,

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engl ...

, between 1944 and 1947, he became a

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

in the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

until 1953, when he became

Archdeacon An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denomina ...

of Southern Melanesia and the

New Hebrides New Hebrides, officially the New Hebrides Condominium () and named after the Hebrides in Scotland, was the colonial name for the island group in the South Pacific Ocean that is now Vanuatu. Native people had inhabited the islands for three th ...

. He was Assistant Bishop of Melanesia between 1974 and 1975, and then became the first Bishop of the New Hebrides, serving from 1975 to 1980 when he was

translated Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

to Glasgow and Galloway, in the Scottish Episcopal Church on 20 January 1981 in Scotland. He retired on 28 February 1991. After retirement he was made an honorary assistant bishop in the

Diocese of Ripon The Diocese of Ripon (Diocese of Ripon and Leeds from 1999 until 2014) was a former Church of England diocese, part of the Province of York. Immediately prior to its dissolution, it covered an area in western and northern Yorkshire as well as ...

, where he became the first bishop in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

to announce that he was gay, after disclosing his sexuality on television in 1995. Rawcliffe later argued for the

age of consent The age of consent is the age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to Human sexual activity, sexual acts. Consequently, an adult who engages in sexual activity with a person younger than the age of consent is un ...

for homosexual relations to be reduced to 14. Rawcliffe died on 1 February 2011 at the age of 89.

References

External links

Link to information on Rawcliffe's archived papers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rawcliffe, Derek Alec 1921 births 2011 deaths Clergy from Manchester Alumni of the University of Leeds Archdeacons of Southern Melanesia Bishops of Glasgow and Galloway 20th-century Scottish Episcopalian bishops People educated at Sir Thomas Rich's School English gay writers LGBTQ Anglican bishops Officers of the Order of the British Empire Anglican assistant bishops of Melanesia Anglican bishops of New Hebrides, Vanuatu and New Caledonia Diocese of Vanuatu and New Caledonia 20th-century Anglican bishops in Oceania 20th-century English LGBTQ people 21st-century English LGBTQ people

Life and ministry

Archives

References

External links