Bishop of St Asaph

Bishop of St Asaph
Bishopric
anglican
Incumbent: Gregory Cameron
Location
Ecclesiastical province	Wales
Information
Diocese	St Asaph
Cathedral	St Asaph Cathedral

The Bishop of St Asaph heads the Church in Wales diocese of St Asaph.

The diocese covers the counties of Conwy and Flintshire, Wrexham county borough, the eastern part of Merioneth in Gwynedd and part of northern Powys. The Episcopal seat is located in the Cathedral Church of St Asaph in the city of St Asaph in Denbighshire, north Wales.

The Bishop's residence is Esgobty, St Asaph. The current bishop is Gregory Cameron, who was elected on 5 January and consecrated on 4 April 2009. He became Bishop of St Asaph in succession to John Davies, who was consecrated in October 1999 and who retired in 2008.

Early times

This diocese was supposedly founded by St Kentigern (Cyndeyrn) about the middle of the 6th century, although this is unlikely. The date often given is 583. Exiled from his see in Scotland, Kentigern is said to have founded a monastery called Llanelwy – which is the Welsh name for St Asaph – at the confluence of the rivers Clwyd and Elwy in north Wales, where after his return to Scotland he was succeeded by Asaph or Asa, who was consecrated Bishop of Llanelwy. The Diocese of Llanelwy originally largely coincided with the kingdom of Powys, together with the part of the kingdom of Gwynedd known as Gwynedd Is Conwy, but lost much territory first by the Mercian encroachment marked by Watt's dyke and again by the construction of Offa's Dyke, soon after 798. Nothing is known of the history of the diocese during the disturbed period that followed. Some historians doubt the existence of the diocese per se before the Norman period, and the bishop list and the fact that the Diocese of Bangor, in the kingdom of Gwynedd, held large tracts of land there tends to confirm this.

Middle Ages

Domesday Book gives scanty particulars of a few churches but is silent as to the cathedral. Early in the twelfth century Norman influence asserted itself and in 1143 Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, consecrated one Gilbert as Bishop of St. Asaph, but the position of his successors was very difficult and one of them, Godfrey, was driven away by poverty and the hostility of the Welsh. A return made in the middle of the thirteenth century (London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius, c. x.) shows the existence of eight rural deaneries, seventy-nine churches, and nineteen chapels. By 1291 the deaneries had been doubled in number and there were Cistercian houses at Basingwerk, Aberconwy, Strata Marcella and Valle Crucis, and a Cistercian nunnery, Llanllugan Abbey. The cathedral, which had been burnt in the wars, was rebuilt and completed in 1295. Dedicated to St Asaph, it was a plain massive structure of simple plan, and was again destroyed during the Wars of the Roses. When it was restored by Bishop Redman the palace was not rebuilt and thus the bishops continued to be nonresident, notwithstanding the fact that in the late Middle Ages the bishop had five episcopal residences, four of which were alienated under Edward VI of England. At the end of the fifteenth century there was a great revival of church building, as is evidenced by the churches of that date still existing in the diocese. The chief shrines in the diocese were St Winefred's Well, St Garmon in Yale, St Derfel Gadarn in Edeirnion, St Melangell at Pennant, and the Holy Cross in Strata Marcella. All these were demolished at the Reformation. At that time the diocese contained one archdeaconry, sixteen deaneries, and one hundred and twenty-one parishes.

The names and succession of the bishops after Saints Kentigern and Asaph are not clearly known until 1143. The last bishop in communion with Rome was Thomas Goldwell, who acceded in 1555 and was in the process of being transferred to Oxford when Queen Mary died and Elizabeth I came to the throne. Goldwell fled to the Continent and died in Rome on 13 April 1585, the last surviving member of the pre-Reformation hierarchy. The see continued to be part of the Church of England until the Church was disestablished in Wales in 1920, since when it has been part of the (Anglican) Church in Wales.

List of the Bishops of St Asaph

Tenure	Incumbent	Notes
Unknown	Kentigern (Saint Mungo)	Originally Bishop of Glasgow from c. 540; founded diocese as episcopus Elvensis, Elguensis, Elveiisis, Lanelwensis
Unknown	Saint Asaph
About 600	Tysilio
About 800	Renchidus
About 928	Cebur
About 1070	Melanus
1143 to c. 1151	Gilbert	See recreated as suffragan of Canterbury
c. 1152 to 1154	Geoffrey of Monmouth
1154 to 1155	Richard	Died in office
c. 1160 to 1165	Godfrey	Left see to become abbot of Abingdon in 1165, removed from office in 1175
1175 to 1181	Adam the Welshman	Canon of Pershore
1183 to c. 1186	John I
1186 to c. 1224	Reiner
1225 to c. 1233	Abraham
1235 to c. 1241	Hugh	Monk of the Friars
1242 to 1247	Hywel ab Ednyfed	Also known as Howel ap Ednevet
1247 to 1249	vacant
1249 to 1266	Einion I	Also known as Anian
1267 to 1268	John II
1268 to 1293	Einion II	Also known as Anian de Schonau, prior of Rhudland
1293 to 1314	Llywelyn de Bromfield	Also known as Leolinus de Bromfield
1315 to c. 1352	Dafydd ap Bleddyn	Also known as David ap Blethin; canon of St. Asaph
1352 to 1357	John Trevor (I)	Also known as John Trevaur
1357 to 1375	Llywelyn ap Madog	Also known as Leolinus ap Madoc ap Elis; dean of St. Asaph
1376 to 1382	William Spridlington	Also known as William de Spridlington; dean of St. Asaph
1382 to 1389	Lawrence Child	Monk of Battle Abbey, licentiate of the civil law
1390 to 1394	Alexander Bache	Also known as Alexander Bach; canon of St. Asaph
1395 to 1402	John Trevor (II)	Prebendary of Hereford; deprived, possibly reinstated following David II as see not declared vacant prior to his death in 1410
1402 to c. 1408	David II
1411 to c. 1433	Robert Lancaster	Also known as Robert of Lancaster
1433 to 1444	John Low	Also known as John Lobbe; a friar eremite; translated to Rochester
1444 to 1449	Reginald Pecock	Also known as Reginald Peacock; translated to Chichester
1450 to 1463	Thomas Bird	Also known as Thomas Knight; deprived for rebellion; temporalities of the diocese to the king, the bishop of Rochester, Robert Caunton, and John Stanley before the pardoning of Thomas in 1471
1471 to 1495	Richard Redman	Translated to Exeter
c. 1495 to 1500	Michael Deacon	Also known as Michael Dyacon; the king's confessor
1500 to 1503	Dafydd ab Iorwerth	Also known as David ap Yeworth; abbot of Valle Crucis
c. 1503 to c. 1513	Dafydd ab Owain	Also known as David ap Owen; Abbot of Valle Crucis (Aberconwy?)
1513 to 1518	Edmund Birkhead	Also known as Edmund Brokehed
1518 to 1535	Henry Standish
c. 1535 to 1536	William Barlow	Translated to St David's, then Bath & Wells, then Chichester
1536 to 1554	Robert Warton	Also known as Robert Parfew; abbot of St. Savior's Bermondsey; translated to Hereford
1556 to c. 1559	Thomas Goldwell	Theatines; went into voluntary exile
1560 to 1561	Richard Davies	Also known as Richard Davyes; translated St David's
1561 to 1573	Thomas Davies	Also known as Thomas Davyes
1573 to 1600	William Hughes
1601 to 1604	William Morgan	Translator of the Bible into Welsh. Translated from Llandaff
1604 to 1623	Richard Parry	Dean of Bangor
c. 1623 to 1629	John Hanmer	Prebendary of Worcester
1629 to 1651	John Owen	Archdeacon of St Asaph; died in office
1651 to 1660	vacant	For 9 years
1660 to 1666	George Griffith	Archdeacon of St Asaph
1667 to c. 1669	Henry Glemham	Dean of Bristol
1670 to 1680	Isaac Barrow	Translated from Sodor & Man
1680 to 1692	William Lloyd	Dean of Bangor; translated to Lichfield & Coventry, then Worcester
1692 to 1703	Edward Jones	Translated from Cloyne, Ireland
1703 to 1704	George Hooper	Dean of Canterbury; translated to Bath & Wells
1704 to 1708	William Beveridge	Archdeacon of Colchester
1708 to 1714	William Fleetwood	Canon of Windsor; translated to Ely
1714 to 1727	John Wynne	Principal of Jesus College, Oxford; translated to Bath & Wells
1727 to 1731	Francis Hare	Dean of Worcester and of St Paul's in London; translated to Chichester
1732 to 1735	Thomas Tanner	Canon of Christ Church, Oxford
1736 to 1743	Isaac Maddox	Dean of Wells; translated to Worcester
1743 to 1744	John Thomas	Dean of Peterborough; elected in Nov. but translated to Lincoln in Jan. before consecration
1744 to 1748	Samuel Lisle	Archdeacon of Canterbury; translated to Norwich
1748 to 1761	The Hon. Robert Hay Drummond	Prebendary of Westminster; translated to Salisbury
1761 to 1769	Richard Newcome	Translated from Llandaff
1769 to 1788	Jonathan Shipley	Translated from Llandaff
1789 to 1790	Samuel Hallifax	Also known as Samuel Halifax; translated from Gloucester
1790 to 1802	Lewis Bagot	Translated from Norwich
1802 to 1806	Samuel Horsley	Translated from Rochester
1806 to 1815	William Cleaver	Translated from Bangor
1815 to 1830	John Luxmoore	Translated from Hereford
1830 to 1846	William Carey	Translated from Exeter
1846 to 1870	Thomas Short	Translated from Sodor & Man
1870 to 1889	Joshua Hughes	Vicar of Llandovery
1889 to 1934	Alfred Edwards	First Archbishop of Wales 1920–1934
1934 to 1950	William Havard
1950 to 1971	David Bartlett
1971 to 1982	Harold Charles
1982 to June 1999	Alwyn Rice Jones	Archbishop of Wales 1991–1999
1999 to 2008	John Davies
2009 onwards	Gregory Cameron	Consecrated 4 April 2009
Source(s):

References

• Haydn's Book of Dignities (1894) Joseph Haydn/Horace Ockerby, reprinted 1969
• Whitaker's Almanack 1883 to 2004 Joseph Whitaker & Sons Ltd/A&C Black, London
• https://web.archive.org/web/20050320015243/http://tejones.net:80/religion/Bishops/

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Ancient Diocese of Saint Asaph". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.