Frederic Hicks Beaven (11 April 1855 – 22 January 1941) was bishop of Mashonaland from 1911, through 1915 when his title was changed to bishop of Southern Rhodesia, until his retirement in 1925.

History

Born in Rodwell, Wiltshire, he was the eldest son of Christopher, a farmer, and Edith ( Hicks) Beaven who lived at

Broughton Gifford Broughton Gifford is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish about west of Melksham in Wiltshire, England. The parish includes the hamlets of Norrington Common and The Common. History Formerly much of Broughton Gifford and the s ...

, Wiltshire. Frederic had three brothers, all of whom emigrated to Australia, and two sisters. He married Georgina Braithwaite Dawes in 1883 in Brighton; they did not have any children. He was educated at

Queen Elizabeth's School, Wimborne Minster Queen Elizabeth's School (also known as QE) is a co-educational comprehensive secondary school in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England. Introduction QE is an upper school, taking students between the ages of 13 and 18. In November 2014 there wer ...

and

University College, Durham University College, informally known as Castle, is the oldest constituent college of Durham University in England. Centred on Durham Castle on Palace Green, it was founded in 1832 by William van Mildert, Bishop of Durham. As a constituent ...

. He was ordained in 1879 after studying at St Bees Theological College. His first post was 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 ...

St Martin's Church, Brighton St Martin's Church (in full, St Martin with St Wilfrid, St Alban and St Richard Hollingdean) is an Anglican church in Brighton, England, dating from the mid-Victorian era. It is located on Lewes Road, Brighton, Lewes Road in the Round Hill, Bri ...

. He then held incumbencies at All Saints',

Newborough, Staffordshire Newborough is a village and civil parish in the county of Staffordshire, England. It is located south west of Hanbury and west of Burton-upon-Trent. Newborough has a pub, a school and a church. At the 2011 UK census, the population stood at ...

(1881–85), St Chad's Church, Stafford (1885–87) and

St Paul's, Burton upon Trent St Paul's Church is a Church of England parish church in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire England. The church, on St Paul's Square and near the Town Hall, opened in 1874 and was designed by the architects James M. Teale and Edmund Beckett Deni ...

(1887–1901). In the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...

, he was an acting chaplain to the 2nd Battalion, the

North Staffordshire Regiment The North Staffordshire Regiment (Prince of Wales's) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, which was in existence between 1881 and 1959. The 64th (2nd Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot was created on 21 April 1758 from the 2nd Battali ...

, and from 1903 he was

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 ...

Matabeleland Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi ...

. In 1908 he became the

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of Salisbury (now Harare), his last appointment before elevation to the

episcopate A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of dioceses. The role ...

in 1911.“Church and Settler in Colonial Zimbabwe: A Study in the History of the Anglican Diocese of Mashonaland/Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1925, Vol. 34” Welsh, P (Ed): Boston, Brill Academic Publishing, 2008 He was consecrated Bishop in Cape Town Cathedral on New Year's Day, 1911. He was responsible for the start of construction of the Cathedral of St Mary and All Saints in Salisbury and the choir and sanctuary were completed in 1914. In the First World War, he was chaplain general of the Rhodesian Forces. During his episcopate, in 1919, the first indigenous person in Zimbabwe, Samuel Mhlanga was ordained to the deaconate. Beaven became a

Doctor of Divinity A Doctor of Divinity (DD or DDiv; ) is the holder of an advanced academic degree in divinity (academic discipline), divinity (i.e., Christian theology and Christian ministry, ministry or other theologies. The term is more common in the Englis ...

(DD). Retiring from his bishopric, he served as rector of

Thelnetham Thelnetham is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located on the southern bank of the River Little Ouse (the Norfolk-Suffolk border), six miles west of Diss, in 2005 its population was 230. Th ...

, Suffolk, 1925-26. Subsequently he lived in Paignton, Worthing and Bognor Regis. The National Portrait Gallery has two portrait photographs of Beaven.

References

1855 births Military personnel from Wiltshire People from Calne Alumni of University College, Durham British Army personnel of the Second Boer War English Anglican missionaries 20th-century Anglican bishops in Africa Anglican bishops of Harare and Mashonaland 1941 deaths Archdeacons of Matabeleland Royal Army Chaplains' Department officers Second Boer War chaplains People educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Wimborne Minster Anglican missionaries in Zimbabwe {{Africa-Anglican-bishop-stub