Seventh Bishop of Quebec; Eleventh Metropolitan of Canada; Acting Primate of All Canada.
Philip Carrington was born in Lichfield, England, in 1893. He moved to New Zealand at some point in his youth, and completed school there, receiving and B.A. (1912) and an M.A. (1913) from the University of New Zealand. He went back to England during the First World War to attend Cambridge University, receiving a B.A. in 1916. Upon returning to New Zealand, he was ordained deacon in 1918, then priest in 1919, and worked as curate of the Church of St. Luke the Evangelist in Christchurch, New Zealand, from 1918 to 1922. He became the vicar of Lincoln, New Zealand in 1922, and obtained an M.A. from Cambridge in 1923. That same year, he became the Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Christchurch, until 1925. Also in 1923, he became the Warden of St. Barnabas' College, and a special preacher at St. Peter's Cathedral in Adelaide, South Australia. In 1927, he moved to Canada, and became the Dean of Divinity at Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec. He received an honourary D.C.L. (1933) from Bishop's University, an honourary S.T.D. (1934) from Seabury Western Theological Seminary, and Lit.D. (1934) from the University of New Zealand. In 1935, he was consecrated Bishop of Quebec, and in 1944, became the Metropolitan of Canada and Archbishop of Quebec. He was made Acting Primate of all Canada in 1959, and retired in 1960. He passed away in 1975.
Fourth Bishop of Niagara.
William Reid Clark was born in Russell County, Ontario. He received a B.A. from the University of Trinity College in Toronto in 1874, and was ordained deacon in Ottawa. He was a missionary in Eganville, Ontario from 1874 to 1875, and the headmaster of the Grammar School in Uxbridge, Ontario from 1875 to 1876. In 1876, he was ordained priest, and was a missionary to Palmerston, Ontario. From 1877 to 1879 he was curate of St. Luke's Church in Burlington, Ontario, then vicar of St. John's Church in Ancaster until 1893. In 1885, he received a Master of Arts from the University of Trinity College in Toronto, and in 1886 became the clerical secretary of the Diocese of Niagara until 1903. From 1893 to 1896 he was rector of Barton, then Ancaster from 1896 to 1902. He was the registrar of the diocese from 1897 to 1911, the clerical secretary of the provincial synod of Canada from 1901 to 1904, the archdeacon of Niagara from 1902 to 1911, the secretary-treasurer of the diocese from 1903 to 1911, the clerical secretary for the General Synod of the Church of England in Canada from 1908 to 1911, and finally, was consecrated Bishop of Niagara in 1911. He received an honourary D.D. (1911) from the University of Trinity College, an honourary D.Cn.L (1912) from the University of King's College in Windsor, Nova Scotia, and an honourary D.C.L. (1912) from the University of Bishop's College in Lennoxville, Quebec. He passed away in Hamilton, Ontario in 1925.
Andrew Cobb was a notable architect from Nova Scotia, Canada. Born in 1876 in Brooklyn, New York, he moved to Nova Scotia with his mother, a Nova Scotian, and sister when he was 14-years-old. The family lived in Kings County, and Cobb attended Horton Academy and Acadia University. He went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study architecture, and then the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, during which time he travelled around Italy. In 1909, he started an architectural practice in Halifax with Sydney Dumaresq. Notably, they designed the Memorial Tower in Sir Sanford Fleming Park, also known as the Dingle, in 1911. By 1912, the two men parted ways and began their own firms, though they remained friends. Cobb went on to design many important residential, institutional, and commercial buildings in Halifax and Wolfville, Nova Scotia; and in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland and Labrador. These included buildings at Dalhousie University, such as the Science Building, the MacDonald Memorial Library, and the Law School (now the Faculty Club); buildings at the University of King's College; Victoria General Hospital on Tower Road in Halifax; buildings for Acadia University, including Emmerson Hall and Horton House; and staff houses for Newfoundland Pulp and Paper Company. He was elected fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1940. He was killed in a bus accident in 1943 in Halifax, at the age of 68.
Fifth Bishop of Nova Scotia.
Frederick Courtney was born in Plymouth, England, in 1837. He was ordained deacon in 1864, and priest in 1865, and was the curate of Hadlow, England during this time. He then became incumbent of Charles Chapel in Plymouth, a position he held from 1865 to 1870, when he became the incumbent of St. Jude's in Glasgow, Scotland, until 1876. He moved to the United States at this point, and became an assistant at St. Thomas' Church in New York, from 1876 to 1880. In 1880, he became the rector of St. James' Church in Chicago, Illinois, then the rector of St. Paul's Church in Boston, Massachusetts in 1882, where he stayed until 1888, when he was consecrated Bishop of Nova Scotia in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He resigned in 1903, and became the rector of St. James' Church in New York again, until 1916, when he held the title of Rector Emiratus until he passed away in 1918.
He held various honourary degrees, including an S.T.D. (1881) from Racine College, Wisconsin; a D.C.L. (1889) from University of Trinity College, Toronto; and a D.D. (1893) and D.C.L. (1895) from the University of Bishop's College in Lennoxville, Quebec.
First Bishop of Huron.
Benjamin Cronyn was born in 1802 in Kilkenny, Ireland, and was educated there at Kilkenny College. He received a B.A. from Trinity College in Dublin in 1822, and an M.A. in 1825. He was ordained deacon that same year, then priest in 1827. He was curate of Tunstall, Kirkby Lonsdale in England from 1825 to 1827, and married Margaret Ann Bickerstaff in 1826. The couple had seven children. He was curate of Kilcommick, Longford, Ireland from 1827 to 1832, when he and his family travelled to Canada, where he became the priest in charge of London, Ontario. He immediately set about completing a church that was only partially built by his predecessor, and preached to the people of London and the surrounding areas. He was the rector of both London parish and London Township parish from 1836 to 1842, and remained rector of St. Paul's, London, until 1866. He also became the Chaplain of London in 1838. He was an exceptional fundraiser, and when it was decided that the Diocese of Toronto must be divided, he raised £10 000 to set up an endowment for the new Diocese of Huron, which comprised the 13 counties in southwestern Ontario. He was consecrated as the first bishop of Huron in 1857, and would go on to be an active leader and preacher of his diocese. In 1863, he founded Huron College, as an alternative to Trinity College in Toronto, whose teaching, he believed, aligned too closely with Catholicism. His first wife, Margaret, passed away in 1866, and he married Martha Collins in 1868. He attended the first Lambeth conference in 1867, and passed away in 1871.
Rev. Dr. Robert Darwin Crouse (1930-2011) was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts to Merle and Sarah (Crooks) Crouse. His family had moved to Massachusetts from Nova Scotia, where his family had been for generations. Before her marriage, Sarah was trained in telegraphy and worked with the Canadian Pacific Railway in Montreal, moving back to Nova Scotia to train in the medical field at the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax. She graduated in 1924. Merle was an agent at the Mutual Life Insurance Company. Merle and Sarah were married in 1926 in Lunenburg County. When Robert was only a few months old, his family moved back to the aptly named Crousetown in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. Sarah died from tuberculosis when Robert was six years old, and he and the rest of the family moved into his grandparent’s house next-door.
His schooling began in a one-room schoolhouse in Crousetown, and he later went to King’s Collegiate School in Windsor, NS from 1943 to 1947. After secondary school, he completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of King’s College in Halifax in 1951, and spent a year studying philosophy and theology at King’s and Dalhousie University. He later received a Baccalaureate of Sacred Theology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1954, and was ordained into the priesthood of the Anglican Church of Canada by Bishop Waterman in the same year. He went on to complete a Master of Theology in 1957 at Trinity College in Toronto, Ontario. While finishing his degree at Trinity College, he contributed significantly to the Scholastic Miscellany, edited by the Revd Dr. Eugene R. Fairweather. Crouse’s master’s dissertation was on St. Augustine’s Doctrine of Justitia. He took a break from schooling but returned in 1970, completing a Ph.D (Honorius Augustodunensis). At King’s, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Divinity in 2007.
Crouse was an accomplished educator and theologian. He also had a deep appreciation and love for poetry, literature, architecture, and music. He began teaching in 1960 at the Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Québec. He remained there for three years, before returning to Nova Scotia. He took up a position teaching in Dalhousie’s Classics Department and King’s Foundation Year Programme. Crouse was also one of the driving forces behind the Foundation Year Programme. He remained at King’s/Dal until his retirement in 1995. From 1990-2004, he was also a visiting professor at Patrology at the Augustinianum of the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, making him the first non-Catholic invited to this position. He became a Carnegie Professor at King’s in 1979 and served as Clerk of Convocation from 1972-1994. He was Vice President of King’s for two years, and served as Director of the Foundation Year Program for one. He was made the Canon Theologian of the Diocese of Saskatchewan in 1996, and was a member of the Primate’s Theological Commission from the 1990s into the early 2000s.
Crouse wrote over 70 academic papers and books, with his research focusing on the works of Augustine and Dante. He was an important figure at the annual Atlantic Theological Conferences and cared deeply about the Maritime context in which he was raised. Crouse was also a musician– he played the organ at several parishes throughout his lifetime and established the Summer Baroque concerts in Crousetown. He found the last tracker organ in Nova Scotia, which he installed in St. Mary’s in Crousetown. He also established the choir for the Thursday Solemn Eucharist at the King’s Chapel.
He loved hosting people to his home, students and colleagues alike, and was an avid gardener. Many friends remember his extravagant salads, which at times had “30 or more ingredients.” Notably, he did not own a telephone or a computer and faxed all of his communications. He preferred to have time to sit and contemplate his responses. He died at the age of 80, in his grandparent’s house in Crousetown, where he lived his entire life when he was not studying or travelling.
Horatio Crowell was a poet and journalist in Nova Scotia. He worked for the Halifax Chronicle in 1912, and enlisted with the Scotia Highlanders in 1915, during the First World War. He was injured and returned to Canada. In 1928, he was the public representative for Canadian National Railways. He died in 1930 in Halifax.