His willingness to innovate led to controversy in 1934, when he permitted a Unitarian to deliver a sermon in the cathedral; many felt that it was improper to allow non-Anglicans to preach in an Anglican church.

[4] and according to his eventual successor as Dean of Liverpool, Frederick Dillistone, he worked as a salesman in a large department store near Oxford Circus.

He spotted Dwelly's potential; with the assistance of a businessman whose identity is not known he made it possible for the young man to go to Queens' College, Cambridge in 1903, to study theology with a view to ordination.

[8] Ordained in 1907, Dwelly began his ecclesiastical career with curacies at St Mary Windermere and Cheltenham Parish Church.

The Manchester Guardian recorded that the ceremony, attended by the King and Queen, "was an affair of ecclesiastical pomp such as this realm has not seen for many centuries not for many years is likely to see again.

Garbett said in a sermon in the cathedral in 1945, "Here, directed by the skill of your Dean, your public worship has been made beautiful with music and symbolism.

[13] Notoriety arose from a strident controversy in 1934, when Dwelly miscalculated public opinion and permitted a Unitarian to preach at a normal service in the cathedral.

David publicly supported Dwelly during the ensuing furore, but was formally reproved by the Archbishop at the synod of the province of York in 1934.

[16] Dwelly's devotion to the cathedral was demonstrated during the Second World War, when he took up residence within the building, making a bedroom of a small, unheated room off a tower staircase.

[9] After the funeral service in the cathedral his body was cremated; his ashes were placed in a memorial to him in the south choir aisle, sculpted by Carter Preston, which was unveiled in December 1960.