Thomas Welby


Thomas Earle Welby was an English missionary, clergyman and former soldier. The younger son of a baronet, he served in the army for eight years, but, after leaving 1837, served as a missionary in Canada, where he became a rector, and later as an archdeacon in South Africa, before going on to be consecrated as the second bishop of the island Saint Helena in the Anglican church.

Early life and education

Thomas Earle Welby was born on 11 July 1810, the second son of Sir William Earle Welby, the second Baronet, and Wilhelmina Spry, daughter of William Spry, a Governor of Barbados. He was educated as a boy at Rugby School.
At the age of 16, Welby joined the army as an ensign in the 26th Foot, becoming a lieutenant in 1829 and then a lieutenant in the 13th Light Dragoons in 1830, at which rank he remained until leaving in 1837. After marrying, he was admitted to Christ's College, Cambridge in 1846; he also received two Lambeth Degrees: an M.A., on 22 May 1848, and a Doctor of Divinity on 27 February 1862.

Family

Welby married, in 1837, Mary Browne, daughter of A. Browne; she died in 1897. Together, they had ten children:
Welby, having left the army and ceased his studies at Cambridge without taking his degree, went to work as a missionary in Canada, where he was ordained in the diocese of Toronto, becoming the rector of Sandwich in Western Canada; he remained there for five years, before returning to England, where he served as the rector of Newton-near-Folkingham, Lincolnshire, which was under his father's patronage. He resigned this benefice and, after completing missionary work, he became an archdeacon in the Diocese of George, South Africa, in 1856. When Piers Claughton, the first bishop of St. Helena, was translated to Colombo, Welby was consecrated as the second bishop of St Helena at Lambeth Palace on 29 May 1862; it was at this time that he was conferred with his second Lambeth degree, a Doctor of Divinity, by Charles Longley, archbishop of Canterbury. His obituary in the Morning Post states that he declined several subsequent offers of translation to "more important" posts, being a "firm believer" in the principle that colonial bishops should not return to England. He served as bishop until his death in 1899.

Death

He was killed in a carriage accident at Jamestown on 6 January 1899.