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Charles
Inglis
First Bishop of Nova
Scotia
d. 24 February 1816
Charles
Inglis, the son of a clergyman, was born at Glencolumbkille, Ireland in 1734.
The death of his father when Charles was eleven years old prevented him
from receiving a university education, but he was well directed in his reading
and he obtained a solid grounding in the classics.
In 1754 Charles went to America to teach at a school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. After four years of teaching he returned to England and was shortly thereafter ordained as a priest in the Anglican Church. He took up duties as a "missionary" at Dover, Pennsylvania (a community now located in Delaware) in 1759. There in 1764 he married, but his wife subsequently died in childbirth.
In December of 1765, now age 31, Charles Inglis became the assistant in Trinity parish, New York. In 1773 he married again, and between 1774 and 1777, four children were born to the couple. In 1777 he became rector of Trinity Church; in 1778 Oxford University awarded him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. However, these were years of great turmoil, as the American Revolution enveloped all of society. For Inglis, the end of the war coincided with tragic personal events: the death of his elder son and of his second wife. At the same time, the evacuation of New York in November 1783 forced him to resign his rectorship and return to England. There where in 1787 he was consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury as Bishop of "Nova Scotia and its dependencies". In those days this comprised a vast area, including New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, all of Quebec and much of Ontario, as well as Bermuda.
Under Inglis' enthusiastic leadership a number of churches were erected throughout his diocese. Through the years from 1790 to 1797 he consecrated many churches, from Fredericton (Christ Church) to Preston (St. John's). But probably the most noteworthy accomplishment of Bishop Inglis' career in Nova Scotia was the establishment of King's College in Windsor, set up "with an immediate view to the education of candidates for the ministry of the church." [Following a disastrous fire in 1920 the college was rebuilt in Halifax; now, as the University of King’s College, it is the oldest English-speaking Commonwealth university outside the United Kingdom.]
Inglis went into semi-retirement in 1795, moving from the provincial capital of Halifax to Windsor, and the following year he settled on his country estate near Aylesford. He died there on February 24, 1816, and his remains were buried under the chancel of St. Paul's at Halifax.
Acknowledgements:
Text adapted from Historical
Biographies, Archives
Canada
Image from
Ancient
Faces