William Proctor Swaby

FRGS The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

(184416 November 1916) was a colonial

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 from 1893 until 1916. Born in

Tetney Tetney is a village in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, just west of the Prime Meridian. History On the edge of the village is the site of a Marconi Beam Station from where telegrams were sent to Australia and India as par ...

, Swaby was educated at

Durham University Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament (UK), Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by r ...

, where he won the Barry Scholarship. He eventually gained a doctorate in

Divinity Divinity (from Latin ) refers to the quality, presence, or nature of that which is divine—a term that, before the rise of monotheism, evoked a broad and dynamic field of sacred power. In the ancient world, divinity was not limited to a single ...

He held incumbencies at

Castletown, Sunderland Castletown is a suburb of Sunderland in Tyne and Wear, England. A former mining community, the Hylton Colliery was located at the east end of the village; it lies north of the River Wear, and is near to Hylton Castle and Washington. At Hylto ...

and at

Milfield Milfield is a village in Northumberland, England about northwest of Wooler. The A697 road passes through the village. History Milfield is the likely location of the Northumbrian royal settlement of Maelmin. Bede tells us that a residence ...

before being ordained 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 1893 as

Bishop of Guyana The Anglican Diocese of Guyana is one of eight within the Province of the West Indies. Its cathedral is St. George's Cathedral, Georgetown. The diocese came into being on 24 August 1842, when William Austin (1842–1892) was consecrated as the ...

. He was consecrated a bishop on 24 March 1893, by Edward White Benson,

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the Primus inter pares, ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the diocese of Canterbury. The first archbishop ...

, at

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London, England. Since 1066, it has been the location of the coronations of 40 English and British m ...

. In Guyana he encouraged the development of a

Third Order of Saint Francis The Third Order of Saint Francis, or Franciscan Tertiaries, is the third order of the Franciscan tradition of Christianity, founded by the medieval Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi. Francis founded the Third Order, originally called t ...

within the Anglican church based on the work by

Emily Marshall Emily Esther Marshall (4 December 1832 – 23 June 1915) was a British advocate of an ordained ministry for women and founder of an Anglican Franciscan third order. Life Marshall was born in Upper Clapton in London in 1832. She was the midd ...

. She was his sister-in-law and she had been an assistant from when he was in Sunderland. Swaby's archdeacon Fortunato Pietro Luigi Josa published ''St. Francis of Assisi and the Third Order in the Anglo-Catholic Church'' in 1898 in England quoting text from the order's founder but without naming her. The idea grew and when Swaby 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 ...

Barbados Barbados, officially the Republic of Barbados, is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region. It lies on the boundary of the South American ...

and the Windward Islands in December 1899/1900 then the new order quickly took hold. Swaby held the two separate Sees of Barbados and of the Windward Islands together. He died in post in 1916. Swaby was a Fellow of the Colonial Institute and the

Royal Microscopical Society The Royal Microscopical Society (RMS) is a learned society for the promotion of microscopy. It was founded in 1839 as the Microscopical Society of London making it the oldest organisation of its kind in the world. In 1866, the Society gained it ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swaby, Proctor 1844 births People from Tetney, Lincolnshire Alumni of Hatfield College, Durham 20th-century Anglican bishops in the Caribbean Anglican bishops of Guyana Anglican bishops of Barbados Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society 1916 deaths 19th-century Anglican bishops in the Caribbean