Episcopal Press and News
Bishop Stopford Dies in London
Episcopal News Service. August 18, 1976 [76276]
LONDON -- The Anglican bishop who presided over the major transition of the Church in the Middle East died near London at the age of 75.
The Rt. Rev. and Rt. Hon. Robert Wright Stopford had been appointed Bishop of Bermuda early this year after a long career that included episcopal oversight of the Anglican churches in North and Central Europe and 12 years as Bishop of London.
Shortly after his translation to Bermuda, Dr. Stopford underwent surgery for ulcers, according to church officials, and then went back to England to convalesce. He was hospitalized at Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading and died there Aug. 13.
He held B.A. and M.A. degrees from Hertford College, Oxford, and was ordained priest in 1933. In 1955 he was consecrated Bishop Suffragan of Fulham in charge of the area that stretched 10,000 miles from Bordeaux to Moscow and included Anglican communities in Scandinavia. The following year he was translated to the Diocese of Peterborough and served there until 1961 when he was assigned to London.
He was well-known throughout the Anglican community as a pastor and canonical scholar and, upon his retirement from London in 1973, was appointed Vicar General of the Archbishopric of Jerusalem where he supervised the planning of a new constitution and the transition of the sprawling area from a see of the Church of England to an independent province. He finished that work this year and had been assigned to Bermuda since February.
Bishop Stopford was well known in the Episcopal Church as a lecturer in many of its dioceses.