Theodore Sumner Gibson (1885–1953) was the second

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 of Kimberley and Kuruman The Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman is a diocese in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, and encompasses the area around Kimberley, Northern Cape, Kimberley and Kuruman and overlaps the Northern Cape Province and North West Province (South A ...

and subsequently the fifth

Bishop of St John's The Diocese of Mthatha is a diocese of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Before 2006 it was known as the Diocese of St John's, and earlier still as that of Kaffraria. The diocese currently has 96 ...

from (collectively) 1928 until 1951.

Early life

Born into a clerical family he was educated at

Marlborough Marlborough or the Marlborough may refer to: Places Australia * Marlborough, Queensland * Principality of Marlborough, a short-lived micronation in 1993 * Marlborough Highway, Tasmania; Malborough was an historic name for the place at the sou ...

and

Keble College, Oxford Keble College () is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its main buildings are on Parks Road, opposite the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, University Museum a ...

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 A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian denominations, such as the Cathol ...

in 1909 and

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

a year later his first post was as

curate 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 as ...

at ''All Saints, Wokingham''.

South Africa

His next post was in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and, after a brief return to

Brixton Brixton is an area of South London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th century ...

between 1916 and 1919, he returned to spend the bulk of his career there. After a

Chaplain A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secular institution (such as a hospital, prison, military unit, intellige ...

cy to the

De Beers The De Beers Group is a South African–British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pi ...

work force in

Kimberley Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia Queensland * Kimberley, Queensland, a coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas South Australia * County of Kimberley, a cadastral unit in South Australia Ta ...

he rose rapidly within the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman. As

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 ...

, then

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

of a challenging area his ''

Times Time is the continued sequence of existence and events, and a fundamental quantity of measuring systems. Time or times may also refer to: Temporal measurement * Time in physics, defined by its measurement * Time standard, civil time specificat ...

'' obituary noted he His episcopate in Kimberley and Kuruman was marked by poverty in the diocese. Prayer intentions for January 1935 included: "Distress in Kimberley and on the River Diggings…" Similar dedication was shown 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 St John's. While Cochrane, in his book, ''The Servants of Power'', has written of the church of this era in South Africa as being typified by a "growing interest in apolitical spirituality," it has been noted that Bishop Gibson tracked political matters closely: hardly a bill went before parliament without his having commented on it.

Madehurst, Sussex

On retirement, Gibson was

Priest in charge A priest in charge or priest-in-charge (previously also curate-in-charge) in the Church of England is a priest in charge of a parish who is not its incumbent; they will normally work on a short-term contract and have less freedom to act within the ...

Madehurst Madehurst is a small village and civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England on the south slopes of the South Downs in the South Downs National Park. It is three miles (5 km) north-west of Arundel, to the west of the A29 ro ...

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

Liturgical matters

Gibson engaged in important liturgical work, having served as secretary to the Liturgical Committee of the

Church of the Province of South Africa The Anglican Church of Southern Africa, known until 2006 as the Church of the Province of Southern Africa, is the province of the Anglican Communion in the southern part of Africa. The church has twenty-five dioceses, of which twenty-one are loc ...

from 1931 to 1950. The 'South African liturgy' – the Prayer Books of 1924 and 1954 – were widely acknowledged as amongst the "most satisfactory" in the

Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is a Christian Full communion, communion consisting of the Church of England and other autocephalous national and regional churches in full communion. The archbishop of Canterbury in England acts as a focus of unity, ...

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gibson, Theodore Sumner 1885 births 1953 deaths 20th-century Anglican Church of Southern Africa bishops Alumni of Keble College, Oxford Anglican archdeacons in Africa Anglican bishops of Kimberley and Kuruman Anglican bishops of St John's People educated at Marlborough College People from Arun District 19th-century Anglican theologians 20th-century Anglican theologians