Edward Feild

Feild was ordained a deacon in 1826, and a priest in 1827 by the Bishop of Oxford and combined work as a tutor at Queen's and university examiner with being curate in charge at Kidlington.

In both parishes Feild instituted considerable reform—rebuilding, starting schools, encouraging his parishioners to cultivate allotments on church land, and raising money from his friends.

However, what brought him to prominence – and led to his being offered a bishopric – was his work as Inspector of Schools for the National Society and his subsequent published report which was widely discussed throughout the country.

This proved hugely unpopular as the fishermen were used to a church which was financed by missionary societies which obtained their funds in England.

He campaigned for thirty years for the grant given for education by the local legislature to Protestants to be divided so that Anglicans could be treated in the same way as the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1867 he reorganised his diocese, acquired an assistant bishop, James Butler Knill Kelly (afterwards Primus of Scotland), and married Sophia, the widow of the Revd J.G.

Never a man to compromise, despising popularity, who made no bones about his differences with Methodists and Roman Catholics, and trying hard to rid his church of evangelicals, he was at first unpopular.

His engaging personality, absence of malice, and strong sense of principle eventually won Feild affectionate respect.

Sectarian feeling ran high and could have led to extensive bloodshed had the Protestant ascendancy of the early nineteenth century been maintained.