Henry Cotterill

Henry Cotterill (1812 – 16 April 1886) was an Anglican bishop, serving as Bishop of Grahamstown, South Africa from 1856 to 1871, and as Bishop of Edinburgh in the Scottish Episcopal Church from 1872 until his death.

Early life

Cotterill was born in Ampton in 1812 into an ecclesiastical family of committed Church Evangelicals. His father, Joseph Cotterill (1780 – 1858), was Rector of Blakeney, Norfolk, and a prebendary of Norwich Cathedral. His mother, Anne Boak, was a close friend of Hannah More. Educated at his father's old college, St John's College, Cambridge, he was both Senior Wrangler and headed the list of Classicists in 1835, on the strength of which he was elected as a Fellow of his college.

From 1875 to 1881, he served as one of the founding Council members of the Cockburn Association, a campaigning conservation group established in 1875 to protect and preserve Edinburgh's built and natural heritage.

He died in post in Edinburgh in 1886 and was buried between the choir stalls in the cathedral.