Henry Montgomery-Campbell

Henry Colville Montgomery Campbell (11 October 1887 – 26 December 1970) was a Church of England bishop. He was ordained in 1910 and served as vicar or rector in a number of London parishes before being consecrated as a bishop in 1940, holding, successively, the suffragan bishoprics of Willesden and Kensington and the diocesan bishoprics of Guildford and London until his retirement in 1961.

Early life and ordained ministry Montgomery Campbell was the son of Sydney Montgomery Campbell, who was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1885 and became vicar of St John's, Hammersmith, and later of Midhurst and Banstead. The son was educated at Malvern College and Brasenose College, Oxford. and ordained priest by Edward Talbot, Bishop of Winchester, at Holy Trinity Church, Guildford, on St Thomas's Day 1911 (21 December). After distinguished wartime service in which he received the Military Cross for bravery at Gallipoli, he served as vicar of West Hackney (1919–26) and Hornsey (1926–33). From 1929 to 1933 he also held the post of Rural Dean of Hornsey.

Episcopal ministry Montgomery Campbell was appointed to the episcopate as the suffragan Bishop of Willesden in 1940; (his appointment was announced on 13 March and he must have been translated by the time of his successor's consecration on 25 March). He became a diocesan bishop as Bishop of Guildford in 1949 — his election was confirmed on 23 November. His diocese was of quite recent creation, having been formed in 1927. The new cathedral by Edward Maufe was under construction, and the pro-cathedral, Holy Trinity Church, in which Montgomery Campbell was enthroned, was the building in which he had been ordained a priest, 38 years earlier. He described Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, as "a hard man — he boils his eggs in widows' tears". About to interview an ordinand he said, "Come in, Brown. Take a chair." The young man corrected him: "Fiennes-Brown, my Lord." "Take two chairs" was the reply. Commenting on his predecessors and successors at Guildford he said, "The first Bishop of Guildford went out of his mind, the second had no mind to go out of, then they had me, then a saint, and now they have started all over again." At his enthronement as Bishop of London he banged ceremonially with his crosier on the great West door of St Paul's, which there was some delay in opening. He turned to his chaplain and said, "We've come to the wrong place". When the door was finally opened revealing the aged canons of the cathedral, he commented, "The See gives up its dead". He died at the age of 83 in Westminster Hospital on 26 December 1970 having contracted bronchial pneumonia after falling during a power cut and fracturing his thigh. The funeral was a quiet service at St Stephen's, Westminster on 31 December, and he was buried at Wivelsfield, Sussex. A memorial service was held in St Paul's Cathedral the following month. He was predeceased by his wife, who died in 1928; he was survived by their four daughters and one son.

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