New Bishop

The son of a Lincolnshire grocer last week became one of the top dignitaries in the Church of England. Nominated by King George VI to be Bishop of London* was popular, friendly Right Rev. John William Charles Wand, 60, Bishop of Bath & Wells (TIME, Sept. 20, 1943).

High Churchman Wand will bring to his new job both scholarship and a firsthand knowledge of a clergyman's daily grind. London will also have a Bishop who speaks his mind. Sample: "If we wish to reform the nation, we must begin at the top with statesmen and politicians. I would like to see us governed by a government truly democratic . . . there should be an end to this outside government where the Prime Minister and his ministers go to Parliament with their minds already made up for them by outside influences."

Rugged, cleft-chinned Bishop Wand was a brilliant student at Oxford (he took a first-class in theology) and a chaplain in World War I. For eleven years, he was a tutor at Sarum Theological College; then he was recalled to Oxford as dean of Oriel College. In 1934, he became Archbishop of Brisbane.

Wherever he went, me Bishop made friends. He learned to preach to Papuan natives in their own tongue. Australians liked his lack of "side." He carefully avoids any hint of the stuffed shirt: "When I was the dean of [Oriel] my colleagues used to write to me as 'the not-very-reverend Dean.'"

Bishop Wand's new post is sure to please sport-minded Anglicans. Onetime president of the Queensland Soccer Association, he expects to take an active interest in the Fulham Football Club--"if I am asked." In Brisbane, he once created a sensation by announcing that he had no objection to Sunday sports--providing that church was attended too. Said he: "If it is a sin to play games on Sunday, I am a sinner."

*A post made vacant when Dr. Geoffrey Francis Fisher became Archbishop of Canterbury (TIME, April 30). The Bishop of London, who holds one of the five permanent ecclesiastical seats in the House of Lords, must be elected (although the election is only a formality) by the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's Cathedral before his nomination can officially take effect.

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