The Diocese of Edinburgh was founded in 1633 by King Charles I. William Forbes was consecrated in St Giles Cathedral as its first bishop on 23 January 1634. The General Assembly of 1638 deposed Bishop David Lindsay and all the other bishops, so the next, George Wishart, was consecrated in 1662 after the Restoration.
In 1690 it was Bishop Alexander Rose (1687-1720) whose unwelcome reply to King William III led to the disestablishment of the Scottish Episcopalians as Jacobite sympathisers, and it was he who led his congregation from St Giles to a former wool store as their meeting house.
After the repeal of the penal laws in 1792 and the reuniting of Episcopal and ‘Qualified’ congregations, the Diocese grew under the leadership of Bishops Daniel Sandford, James Walker, C.H. Terrot and Henry Cotterill. The high point of the 19th Century was the consecration of St Mary’s Cathedral in 1879.
The present Bishop is the Rt Rev Brian Smith, who was installed on 23 June 2001.
Further details
For further details of the history of the Diocese, and the wider Scottish Episcopal Church, please see A History of the Scottish Episcopal Church on the Provincial website, based on ‘A Church for Scotland’ by Gerald Stranraer-Mull’s ‘A Church for Scotland’.
Past Bishops
A timeline of all past (and present) Bishops of the Diocese of Edinburgh :
1634 - William Forbes
1634 - David Lindsay
1662 - George Wishart
1672 - -Alexander Young
1679 - John Paterson
1687 - Alexander Rose
1720 - John Fullarton
1727 - Arthur Millar
1727 - Andrew Lumsden
1733 - David Freebairn
1739-76 - See Vacant
1776 - William Falconer
1787 - William Abernethy Drummond
1806 - Daniel Sandford
1830 - James Walker
1841 - Charles Hughes Terrot
1872 - Henry Cotterill
1886 - John Dowden
1910 - George Henry Somerset Walpole
1929 - Harry Seymour Reid
1939 - Ernest Denny Logie Danson
1947 - Kenneth Charles Harman Warner
1961 - Kenneth Moir Carey
1975 - Alastair Iain Macdonald Haggart
1986 - Richard Frederick Holloway
2001 - Brian Arthur Smith
