In 1802, Sumner became an assistant master at his alma mater, Eton College, where he was nicknamed "Crumpety Sumner" by the boys. He was ordained in 1803. He was elected a Fellow of Eton in 1817 and in 1818 the school presented him to the living of Mapledurham, Oxfordshire. In 1819, he was chosen as a prebendary of the Durham diocese where he served until 1828, when he was consecrated to the episcopate as the Bishop of Chester. He was consecrated on 14 September 1828, by Edward Venables-Vernon-Harcourt, Archbishop of York, at York Minster. During his episcopacy many churches and schools were built in the diocese.
Archbishop of Canterbury
In 1848 he was elevated to Archbishop of Canterbury with an annual income of £15,000. Shortly after taking his seat in the House of Lords he voted for catholic emancipation, which brought him into conflict with many of the clergy in his diocese. Sumner's numerous writings were much esteemed, especially by the evangelical party to which he belonged. His best known writings are his Treatise on the Records of Creation and the Moral Attributes of the Creator and The Evidence of Christianity derived from its Nature and Reception. In the Gorham Case, Sumner came into conflict with Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter, who accused him of supporting heresy and refused to communicate with him. He supported the Divorce Bill in parliament but opposed the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill and the bill for removing Jewish disabilities. His obituary in the Norfolk News of 13 September 1862 commented that "he strongly opposed the admission of Jews into parliament... and was among the foremost to denounce the Puseyite school of theology". Sumner was president of the Canterbury Association which founded Christchurch, New Zealand. In 1848 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Personal life
On 31 March 1803, Sumner married Marianne Robertson in the parochial chapel of St MaryWalcot, Bath, Somerset. She was the daughter of George Robertson of Edinburgh, a captain in the Royal Navy, and Ann Robertson. His wife's maternal grandparents were Francis Lewis, a New York signatory of the Declaration of Independence, and Elizabeth Lewis. Together, John and Marianne were the parents of at least nine children:
Anne Sumner, who married John Adair Griffith Colpoys, son of Vice Admiral Edward Griffith Colpoys.
Marianne died at the Manor House, Wandsworth, on 22 March 1829. Sumner died on Saturday 6 September 1862 at Addington Palace, aged 82, and was buried on 12 September in the graveyard of St Mary's Church, Addington. Two daughters and other relatives are interred at the north-east corner of the churchyard.
Legacy
A portrait of Archbishop Sumner hangs in the hall of University College, Durham; another, in his convocation robes, by Eddis, is at Lambeth Palace; a replica of this is in the hall at King's College, Cambridge. A portrait by Margaret Carpenter was engraved by Samuel Cousins in 1839. A later portrait by the same artist was engraved by T. Richardson Jackson. Francis Holl executed an engraving of another portrait of him by George Richmond. A recumbent effigy by H. Weekes, R.A., funded by public subscription after Sumner's death, is in the nave of Canterbury Cathedral.
