Bickersteth, Edward (1850-1897)
Anglican missionary in India and bishop in Japan
Bickersteth was the grandson of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) secretary of the same name. His father, who became bishop of Exeter, was a leading advocate of missions and of the CMS. After education at Highgate School and Pembroke College, Cambridge, he was ordained in the Church of England in 1873. He returned to Cambridge in 1875 as fellow of Pembroke and helped to mount the Cambridge Mission to Delhi, of which he became leader in 1877.
In 1883 Bickersteth returned to England because of ill health. He intended to return to India in 1886 but was invited to become an Anglican bishop in Japan. A highly creative bishop, he is generally recognized as the founder of Nippon Sei Ko Kwai, the Anglican Church in Japan. With Bishop Channing Williams of the Protestant Episcopal Church U.S.A. and indigenous Japanese leaders, he drafted a church constitution that included the American Episcopal, CMS, and Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) missions and was accepted syndical in 1887. He encouraged Canadian Anglicans to take part in the church’s outreach and introduced religious communities in Tokyo, namely, the St. Andrew’s Brotherhood and the St. Hilda’s Mission for women, of whose work in mission he was a strong advocate. Recurrent illness caused his final return to England in 1896. He attended the Lambeth Conference of 1897 before his untimely death.
This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright © 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved. By Timothy Yates.
Bibliography
Edward Bickersteth, Our Heritage in the Church (1898)
M. Bickersteth, Japan As We Saw It (1893)
S. Bickersteth, The Life and Letters of Edward Bickersteth (1899)
J.M. Campbell, Christian History in the Making (1946)
M. Dewey, The Messengers (1975)
J. Murray, Proclaim the Good News (1985)
S. C. Neill, Anglicanism (1958)
SPG, The Story of the Delhi Mission (1909)
E. Stock, History of the Church Missionary Society (1899, 1916)
H.P. Thompson, Into All Lands (1951).