Frederick Head

[4] There is a citation for the Bar, 'For most conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during operations lasting for several days, when he was continually in the front line accompanying an attack, and by his splendid example inspired the men on all occasions, whilst his attention to wounded and dying men were performed under continuous and heavy fire of all descriptions.

He was vicar of Christ Church, East Greenwich from 1922 to 1926, chaplain to King George V from 1922 to 1929, and canon and sub-dean of Liverpool Cathedral from 1926 to 1929.

[citation needed] Head was considered for bishoprics in England during the 1920s, particularly Peterborough in 1923, but he had not impressed Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury who wrote to the Prime Minister that Head 'was not in what I should regard as the first rank of men of power and leadership'[7] In September 1929 he accepted the archbishopric of Melbourne, was consecrated in Westminster Abbey on 1 November 1929, and enthroned in St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, on 23 December 1929.

He found a diocese that already had many commitments in connexion with church schools and social work, and the financial depression which began just about the time of his arrival made a strong forward policy inopportune.

He interested himself in the question of the re-union of the Christian churches, and in the holding together of his own diocese by preaching peace and goodwill to all, and setting a personal example of plain living and high thinking.

Tactful, unassuming, and modest, scholarly and hard-working, much interested in social questions, Head was a steady influence for good in Melbourne.