Henry Montgomery

Henry Hutchinson Montgomery (3 October 184725 November 1932) was an Anglican bishop and author. He was appointed Bishop of Tasmania in 1889, and was the father of Bernard "Monty" Montgomery, later 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein.

Early life and education Henry Hutchinson Montgomery was born on 3 October 1847 at Cawnpore, India, the second son of the colonial administrator Robert Montgomery, a future Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab.

He was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge. G. M. Trevelyan claimed that Montgomery was one of the few people ever to have jumped up the college steps in one bound.

Career Montgomery was made a deacon on Trinity Sunday 1871 (4 June) and ordained a priest the following Trinity Sunday (26 May 1872) — both times by Richard Durnford, Bishop of Chichester, at Chichester Cathedral; Montgomery took curacies at Hurstpierpoint and St. Margaret's, Westminster. On 21 July 1879,

He was consecrated a bishop at Westminster Abbey on 1 May 1889 by Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury, He was interested in remote Aboriginal communities, and visited Cape Barren Island in the Bass Strait 10 times. The church was active on the island, and for some years co-managed the Aboriginal reserve with the Tasmanian Government until 1901.

After 12 years, he resigned the See, effective 7 November 1901.

Honours In 1905 he was appointed Prelate of the Order of St Michael and St George; and was raised to the rank of Knight Commander (KCMG) in the 1928 King's Birthday Honours.

Personal life and death The Archdeacon at Westminster was Frederic William Farrar. Montgomery became engaged to Farrar's daughter Maud when she was 14 and they married two years later, at Westminster Abbey on 28 July 1881.

In 1887 he inherited New Park, his father's country house and estate, at Moville in Inishowen, County Donegal. Described in his Times obituary as a man "always young in enthusiasm and open vision", he died at home on 25 November 1932

Other descendants include Canadian author Charles Montgomery, who wrote a 2004 travel memoir in the steps of his great-grandfather, The Last Heathen: Encounters with Ghosts and Ancestors in Melanesia.

Works Mankind and the Church: Being an Attempt to Estimate the Contribution of Great Races to the Fulness of the Church of God, 1907 Life's Journey, 1916 Life of Bishop Lefroy, 1920 Project Canterbury, Charles John Corfe, Naval Chaplain - Bishop, 1927 Joy of the Lord, 1931 Old Age, 1932