Henry Montgomery Campbell

Montgomery Campbell[n 1] was the son of Sydney Montgomery Campbell, who was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1885 and became vicar of St John's, Hammersmith, and later of Midhurst and Banstead.[4][5] The son was educated at Malvern College and Brasenose College, Oxford.[4] After studying at Wells Theological College he was made deacon in December 1910[6] and ordained priest by Edward Talbot, Bishop of Winchester, at Holy Trinity Church, Guildford, on St Thomas's Day 1911 (21 December).[7][8] His first appointment was a curacy at Alverstoke.[4] In 1916 he married Joyce Mary, daughter of Norman Thicknesse, rector of St George's Hanover Square.[9] In September, 1916, he was commissioned as a Temporary Chaplain to the Forces (TCF) and posted to Gallipoli. [10] He was Mentioned in Despatches and awarded the Military Cross. The citation reads ‘For conspicuous gallantry and good work during operations. He went out under heavy fire into ‘No Man’s Land’ by daylight to help the wounded there. His cheerful disposition and devotion to duty under trying circumstances, has gained him respect and confidence of the Brigade’.[11] The Times announced the award under the headline ‘The Cheerful Chaplain’, since a cheerful countenance was a means of keeping up the morale of the troops. The report justifying his Mention in Despatches referred to his regular visits under heavy gun fire to First Aid Posts at the Front. [12] Post-War, he served asp vicar of West Hackney (1919–26) and Hornsey (1926–33).[4] In the latter post he ran a centre for the unemployed in a building made available to him by the government.[13] From 1929 to 1933 he also held the post of Rural Dean of Hornsey.[13] In 1933, on Thicknesse's retirement, Montgomery Campbell was appointed to succeed him at St George's.[14]

Montgomery Campbell was appointed to the episcopate as the suffragan Bishop of Willesden in 1940;[13] consecrated a bishop by Cosmo Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, on 25 July 1940 at St Paul's Cathedral, and translated to be the Bishop of Kensington in 1942[15] (his appointment was announced on 13 March[16] and he must have been translated by the time of his successor's consecration on 25 March).[17] Montgomery Campbell was soon considered for diocesan vacancies at Bristol [18] and at Ripon in 1946 [19] and for Lincoln in 1946. [20] Hiwever, the Archbishop of Canterbury regarded Montgomery Campbell as ‘ .... very much a Londoner and though he has a heart of gold and deep human sympathies they are not at once perceived and are sometimes obscured by his facade of cutting epigram’. [21] The key figure in episcopal appointments at that time was the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee. He was assured of Montgomery Campbell’s courage in the Great War and his support for the casualties of German bombing in Guildord, close to London, in 1949, and the appointment was confirmed by the Crown. His diocese was of quite recent creation, having been formed in 1927.[8] The new cathedral by Edward Maufe was under construction, and the pro-cathedral, Holy Trinity Church, in which Montgomery Campbell was enthroned, was the building in which he had been ordained a priest, 38 years earlier.[8] At first, he was doubtful about the need for a new cathedral, but once he had recognised it as a good thing he backed it enthusiastically.[4]

On the retirement of William Wand, Montgomery Campbell became the Bishop of London in 1956, in which position he also became a Privy Councillor. His election to the See was confirmed on 24 January 1956.[22] His elevation to the third most senior see in the country was a surprise. He was 68 and his predecessor had just announced his retirement because he felt too old for the job at 70. Montgomery Campbell was appointed short-term since Archbishop Fisher felt that younger candidates were not ready for such an important post. [23]

He became known for his wit, which was sometimes cutting. In the 1990s, his bons mots were recalled in the columns of The Times. On Mervyn Stockwood's appointment to the bishopric of Southwark, he commented, "I'm taking steps to have the Thames widened"; and later, when encountering Stockwood who was dressed not in the customary black frock coat and gaiters but in purple cassock and cloak, he greeted him, "Hello, Mervyn, incognito I see."[24] He described Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, as "a hard man — he boils his eggs in widows' tears".[25] About to interview an ordinand he said, "Come in, Brown. Take a chair." The young man corrected him: "Fiennes-Brown, my Lord." "Take two chairs" was the reply.[26] Commenting on his predecessors and successors at Guildford he said, "The first Bishop of Guildford went out of his mind, the second had no mind to go out of, then they had me, then a saint, and now they have started all over again."[27] At his enthronement as Bishop of London he banged ceremonially with his crosier on the great West door of St Paul's, which there was some delay in opening. He turned to his chaplain and said, "We've come to the wrong place". When the door was finally opened revealing the aged canons of the cathedral, he commented, "The See gives up its dead".[n 2][27]

A modest man, he called himself "one who is no figure in public life and no scholar, but simply and solely a Father in God who goes round the parishes visiting the chaps – the only thing I am any good at".[4] When Donald Coggan was appointed Archbishop of York in 1961, Montgomery Campbell, thinking that Coggan might have succeeded him in London, wrote ‘I am sorry you are going to York. My reason is that in due course I shall be removed by popular clamour from this job and I hoped that you would come in and clear up the mess.’ [28]His obituarist in The Times commented that this was an underestimate of Montgomery Campbell's abilities, and that he was "a wise and discerning administrator, who could quickly grasp the essentials of a situation and impart to it his own sure touch. He was at heart a man of prayer and great dedication."[4]

Montgomery Campbell retired effective 31 July 1961.[29] He died at the age of 83 in Westminster Hospital on 26 December 1970 having contracted bronchial pneumonia after falling during a power cut and fracturing his thigh.[30] The funeral was a quiet service at St Stephen's, Westminster on 31 December, and he was buried at Wivelsfield, Sussex. A memorial service was held in St Paul's Cathedral the following month.[2] He was predeceased by his wife, who died in 1928; he was survived by their four daughters and one son.[4]