Arthur Baillie Lumsdaine Karney

Arthur Baillie Lumsdaine Karney 14 September 1874 to 8 December 1963 was a Bishop in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa and the Church of England.

Family

He was one of 10 children of Rev. Gilbert Sparshott Karney, Rector of Emmanuel Church, Hampstead and Emma Sarah Storrs. He was eductaed at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a Doctorate of Divinity

He married Georgina Maude Bessie Fielding in Buenos Aires in 1908 and they had 7 children, Peter, Anthony (Tony), Audrey. George, Rosamund, Mary (Molly), and Grace.

Career

He was ordained in the Church of England in 1897 and appointed assistant chaplain to the Missions to Seamen at Sunderland. In 1903 he was Rector of Woolpit in Suffolk in 1903. He had become fascinated in the work of seamen and was sent to work on the staff of the Seaman's Institute in San Francisco then one of the toughest assignments because of the number and state of the seamen arriving after the stormy voyage around Cape Horn. He became involved in protecting young seamen from being 'shanghaied' or 'crimped' and acquired the name of the fighting parson. The San Francisco Institute was destroyed by the earthquake in 1905. In 1906 he was Chaplain to the Missions to Seamen in Buenos Aires.

In 1914, on the outbreak of the First World War he became a chaplain in the Royal Navy firstly on a hospital ship and then with pastoral care for a whole squadron. In early 1918 he came chaplain with the 22nd Northumberland Fusiliers when they were overrun in the German March offensive and in the interests of protecting his men he was taken into captivity at the detention camp in Karlsruhe. From 1918 to 1922 he was Oxford Diocesan Missioner.

On 25 July 1922 he was consecrated first Bishop of Johannesburg. The new cathedral (St Mary's), which bears his name on the foundation stone, was built in a poor downtown area to serve ALL the people of the Johannesburg. He spent a considerable period of his ministry seeking better conditions for the "native" population. A card bearing the words "ALL RACES WELCOME - ARTHUR + " was pinned in the cathedral and remained there for some 50 years. He also instituted services for black congregations in their own languages.

He became Bishop of Southampton from 1933 to 1943, Chaplain of Marlborough College until 1944 and Rector of Blendworth until 1949.Following his retirement he lived in Lewes, Sussex until his death in 1963.

ource

*The Times, 9 December 1963