Charles Abraham (bishop of Wellington)

Charles John Abraham (1814–4 February 1903) was the first Anglican Bishop of Wellington. He married Caroline Palmer who became a noted artist.^[1]

Life

Born in 1814,^[2] the son of the late Royal Navy captain Abraham, of Farnborough, Hampshire, he was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge and was later a Fellow.^[3] He was admitted to the degree of BA in 1837, MA (Cantab) in 1840, BD in 1849, and received the degree of DD in 1859. He was ordained deacon in 1838, and priest in the following year. He was Assistant Master at Eton until 1850, when he went out to New Zealand to become Master of the English department of St John's College, Auckland.^[4]

In 1853 he was appointed Archdeacon of Waitemata by George Selwyn, Bishop of New Zealand.^[5] Selwyn had for two or three years been offering to members of the Church of England a Church Constitution, under which they were to govern themselves; and during the two years which followed, while absent in England, he left Abraham to set out its principles. In 1857 a convention of churchmen was held in Auckland, which resulted in the framing of the Constitution now in force. In the following year Abraham, who had also been acting as chaplain to the bishop, was appointed first Anglican Bishop of Wellington^[6] by John Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury and William Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford and John Lonsdale, Bishop of Lichfield. When the Maori War broke out by reason of the purchase by the Government of the Waitara block, Abraham presented a protest to the Governor, claiming for the Maoris as British subjects the right to be heard in the Supreme Court.^[4]

In 1870 he resigned his see, and, returning to England, was made an assistant bishop (anomalously — in the Church of England — described as a coadjutor bishop) to Selwyn as Bishop of Lichfield. This office he held until Selwyn's death in 1878. From 1872 to 1876 he was Prebendary of Bubbenhall in Lichfield Cathedral, and in 1875-6 was rector of Tatenhill, Staffordshire. From 1876 he was Canon and Precentor at the cathedral.^[4]

He married in 1850 Caroline Harriet, daughter of Charles Palmer, 2nd Baronet, of Wanlip Hall, Leicestershire, a talented artist^[1] and cousin of the wife of George Selwyn. She died in 1877. Abraham is the author of "Festival and Lenten Lectures in St. George's Chapel, Windsor," 1848-9 (Parker), and other works.^[4] He died on 4 February 1903.^[7] His son^[8] and grandson^[9] were also bishops.

References