Jack Stretch

John Francis "Jack" Stretch (28 January 1855 – 19 April 1919[1]) was an Anglican bishop from the last decades of the 19th century until the year of his death.[2]

Stretch was born at Geelong, Victoria, Australia and educated at Geelong Church of England Grammar School and Trinity College, Melbourne,[3] where, on 2 July 1872, he was the first student to enrol in the first residential college erected in association with the University of Melbourne.[4]

He graduated BA in 1874 and LLB in 1887. Ordained in 1878, he began his ordained ministry as a curate in Geelong. In 1892, Stretch became Vicar of St Andrew's Church, Brighton, Melbourne[1] having previously served as incumbent of Holy Trinity Church, Maldon and St Mark's Church, Fitzroy. Appointed to be Dean of Ballarat in 1894. Stretch was consecrated as a bishop in 1895 and made the first co-adjutor bishop for the Brisbane diocese. Stretch was the first Australian to be made a bishop for ministry in Australia. His consecration service (along with Henry Cooper who was made the coadjutor bishop for Ballarat) was held at St Paul's cathedral in Melbourne on the 9th of November, 1895 (this consecration service was only the second occasion that such a service had happened in Australia at that time). [5] In 1906 he was made the Bishop of Newcastle in New South Wales.[6]

He retired in 1919 and died at Killara, Sydney, survived by his two daughters and four sons. Two of his sons, John Carlos William and Cliffe Maurice Osmond, were also Anglican clergy. He was buried in the Anglican section of Sandgate Cemetery, Newcastle.