Bishop Baddeley

Transfer to English See After 15 Years' Hard Service

THE Bishop of Melanesia, Rt. Rev. W.

H. Baddeley, who has been in charge of the mission activities of the An glican Church in the British Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides since 1932, has accepted the Bishopric of Whitby, in England, and soon will depart from the South Pacific.

This news will be received by all classes with deep regret. Bishop Baddeley is one of the most highly respected mission ary leaders in this part of the world— not only because of his achievements in the Pacific Islands, but also because of his charming personal qualities, which

have endeared him to Europeans and natives alike. However, he has had 15 years of intensely hard work in a trying climate—the last few under the almost unendurable conditions created by the Jap invasion—and he is entitled to what ever advantages may lie in a transfer to England.

This Bishop has had an unusual career.

He was born in Sussex 53 years ago, and he had just graduated M.A. of Oxford when World War I broke out, and he joined the Army in 1914 as a combatant.

When the fighting ended in 1918 he was only 24 years old, but he was Lieutenant- Colonel Baddeley, D. 5.0., M.C. and Bar, four times mentioned in despatches. He was ordained in 1921, served in England for three years as a curate and eight years as a vicar, and then was selected

to be Bishop of Melanesia, which at that time urgently needed the services of an outstanding man. How he discharged that trust, and how he refused to leave his Islands people when the Japs came— he dodged the enemy around the moun tains and jungles—“the Bishop who lived like a rat” was his own picturesque des cription—are matters of history.

Bishop Baddeley took a keen interest in administrative affairs, and was an active member of the Solomon Islands Advisory Council.

In 1935, the Bishop married Miss Mary Katherine Thomas, daughter of the well known Bishop of Adelaide, Dr. A. Nutter Thomas.

Bishop Baddeley (on left) with the Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Rev. H. W. Mowll. The photograph was taken in 1945.