Tom Collings

Thomas William Ralph Collings (2 December 1938 – 8 July 2014), known as Tom Collings, was a British-born Canadian Anglican bishop. He served as the seventh Bishop of Keewatin from 1991 to 1996.

Born in Wales, Collings was educated at the University of Oxford in England and Union Theological Seminary in the United States before returning to England to study at the University of Essex. He taught mathematics at a number of British universities and spent several years as deputy director of a research unit at University of Strathclyde. Collings was ordained to the diaconate in Scotland in 1979 and to the presbyterate in Canada in 1980. He first served as an assistant priest at St John's Cathedral in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and went on to serve a variety of Manitoban parishes, most of which had a significant indigenous population.

Collings became Bishop of Keewatin in 1991 and served in that role in the Kenora, Ontario–based diocese until 1996.

Early life and career Collings was born on 2 December 1938 in Abergavenny, Wales. He was raised attending his father's Baptist Sunday school and his mother's Anglican church. In 1963, Collings was awarded a Harkness Fellowship and moved to New York City to attend Union Theological Seminary. he began his presbyteral ministry as an assistant priest at St John's Cathedral from 1980 to 1982.

Collings was elected to be the seventh Bishop of Keewatin in 1991 and was consecrated and installed the same year.

Following his retirement from the See of Keewatin, he and his wife, the priest Julie Black Collings, accepted a charge in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, in the Diocese of Qu'Appelle, where they undertook ministry development work. They later moved back to Winnipeg, where they continued their involvement in indigenous ministry and where they volunteered with St Thomas' Church, Weston. He was also involved with a prison ministry. Collings died on 8 July 2014 in Winnipeg and was buried in St. Mary's-St. Alban's Cemetery in Kaleida, Manitoba.