Leonard Burrows

Born at Rugby, Warwickshire on 7 December 1857, he was educated at Charterhouse[2] and New College, Oxford.[3] Ordained in 1881, he was a Curate at Dorking after which he was Vicar of Wrecclesham and then Rural Dean of Godalming before his appointment as Bishop of Lewes.[4] Translated to Sheffield in 1914 he served 25 years as its first Diocesan Bishop.[5]

The key figure in the appointment of bishops at that time was the Prime Minister, H H Asquith. He regarded Burrows and his wife “as rather of the ‘pushing’ order”, but still had Burrows appointed to Sheffield although Burrow’s whole career had been in the south of England.[6]

Burrows was a strong supporter of British involvement in the Great War, even though his younger son, Leonard Righton Burrows, was killed in action. He had already written of ‘ ....personal devotion and self-sacrifice even unto death in the cause of righteousness, freedom and truth.’ [7]

Three months after his son’s death, Burrows praised Church people who ‘have thrown their whole strength into the War’. [8] Clergy were serving as chaplains and in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and 51 sons of clergymen had volunteered for the military. In 1917, Burrows opposed peace proposals [9] and, in 1918, looked forward to total victory over Germany ‘For the first time in History there is a real chance of obtaining a lasting peace for the world. If the system of military and scientific barbarism for which Germany stands can be finally and completely destroyed, a League of Nations will be possible which shall exchange the law of force for the force of law. Is any sacrifice too great to achieve so priceless a blessing?’ [10]

Like so many of his generation, Burrows would be disappointed that a Second World War lay just two decades ahead.

Burrows retired from Sheffield in August, 1939, on the eve of the Second World War. He was described as a fine Christian gentleman and a splendid Diocesan. [11]

He died on 6 February 1940.[12]

Burrows was the father of Hedley Burrows (Dean of Hereford)[13] and grandfather of Simon Burrows (Bishop of Buckingham).[14]