Charles Owen Leaver Riley

Infobox Person
name =Charles Owen Leaver Riley


image_size =180px
caption =Charles O L Riley

Chaplain General of the Australian Military Forces 1914-1918
birth_date =26 May 1854
birth_place =Birmingham
death_date =23 June 1929
death_place =Perth, Western Australia
occupation =Archbishop
spouse =Elizabeth Merriman
parents =Lawrence William Riley Emma, née Shaw
children =Charles Lawrence Riley Basil Riley

Charles Owen Leaver Riley (1854-1929) was a clergyman and the first Anglican archbishop of Perth, Western Australia.

Riley was the son of Rev. Lawrence William Riley, vicar of St Cross, Knutsford, England, was born at Birmingham on 26 May 1854. He was educated at Owen's College, Manchester, and Caius College, Cambridge where he graduated B.A. in 1878, M.A. in 1881, and was given the honorary degree of D.D. in 1894. He was ordained deacon in 1878 and priest in 1879, and was curate at Brierly, Yorkshire from 1878 to 1880, Bradford from 1880 to 1882, and Lancaster from 1882 to 1885. He became vicar of St Paul's, Preston, in 1885, a position he held for nine years.

In 1894 he was appointed bishop of Perth, Western Australia, then the largest Anglican diocese in the world, with an area of 1,000,000 square miles and a scattered population of about 100,000. He was consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Westminster Abbey on 18 October 1894.

When Riley arrived in Australia he found that the diocese had few clergy, little money, and poor means for organizing religious services for the now rapidly increasing population. He was young and vigorous and quickly made himself acquainted with large areas of his diocese. It was realised that the diocese must be subdivided, but it was not until 1904 that it was found possible to establish the diocese of Bunbury. Other dioceses were subsequently founded in the north-west and the eastern goldfields, and Riley became archbishop of Perth in 1914. With many difficulties Guildford Grammar School was taken over by the Church and firmly established, and Riley also worked hard for the establishment of the University of Western Australia. He was senior chaplain of the Australian Military Forces in Western Australia in 1913; he became chaplain-general in the same year and was at the front from July 1916 to February 1917. He was chancellor of the university from 1916 to 1922 and was also president of the trustees of the public library, museum and art gallery at Perth.

He married Elizabeth Merriman in 1886 and in 1927 his son, Frank Basil Riley, mysteriously disappeared while acting as special correspondent to "The Times" in China. Riley's usually robust health began to fail, and his impending retirement was announced shortly before his death on 23 June 1929. he was survived by his wife and two sons and three daughters. One of the sons, Charles Lawrence Riley, born in 1888, subsequently became Bishop of Bendigo, Victoria.

References

*The Westralian, 24 and 25 June 1929; J. S. Battye, The Cyclopedia of Western Australia; J. G. Wilson, Western Australia's Centenary; Crockford, 1929.
*Dictionary of Australian Biography|First=Charles|Last=Riley|Link=http://gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog/0-dict-biogR.html
*Kimberly 1897