He began learning Latin at the age of six, Greek at ten, and Hebrew at twelve years old, and attended schools in Bristol, Bewdley and Chobham before entering Wadham College, Oxford in 1823.

In 1844 John Medley's mother, who had moved into the vicarage and was caring for the children, was killed in a carriage accident in which he also was seriously injured.

His daughter Christiana married Henry John Lancaster of the 15th (The Yorkshire East Riding) Regiment of Foot in May 1864.

She grew up in the village of Crossmead, which was in Medley's parish of St Thomas, Exeter and later became a hospital nurse, a profession which she followed for 20 years.

[3] Before becoming Bishop of Fredericton in 1845, Medley held several posts in the Diocese of Exeter, which corresponded to the counties of Devon and Cornwall.

[6] Medley supported the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement – also known as Tractarianism – and was well acquainted with its leaders John Keble and Edward Bouverie Pusey.

He collaborated on the translation of two volumes of homilies by Saint John Chrysostom, published in Pusey's Library of the Fathers in 1839.

[1] His Tractarian views were also evident in his 1835 essay The Episcopal form of church government and in a volume of his sermons which was published in 1845.

In 1841 Medley published a volume called Elementary Remarks on Church Architecture, which was praised by the Cambridge Camden Society's periodical The Ecclesiologist.

Among the additions Medley made to his own St. Thomas's Church was a tomb for his late wife, with an effigy carved by her father, John Bacon.

Medley shared this strong opposition to the charging of pew rents and published an article on "The Advantages of Open Seats" in the 1843 Transactions of the Exeter Diocesan Architectural Association.

Both the Cathedral and St. Anne's Chapel had free seats, and Bishop Medley refused to consecrate any new church in which pew rents were charged.

Medley's Anglo-Catholic views made him an object of suspicion to some in New Brunswick, where the American tradition of Congregationalist polity, in which each church congregation was self-governing, was also influential.

He did, however, have supporters within the clergy and although his own opinions were strongly held, his encouragement of coexistence between high and low church Anglicans gradually gained him acceptance.

Soon after his arrival, he began visiting all parts of the diocese, building and consecrating churches, training and ordaining priests, and confirming parishioners.

[5] Medley arrived in Canada with plans drawn by the young Exeter architect Frank Wills for a cathedral to be based on St. Mary's Church in Snettisham, Norfolk.

A lot on the Saint John River was donated, as was the building stone, and the cornerstone of Christ Church Cathedral was laid on 10 October 1845.

The design was completed by architect William Butterfield after Wills left New Brunswick in 1848 to set up a practice in New York City.

[7]: 143 To have a suitable church in which to preach during the construction of the cathedral, Medley built St. Anne's Chapel, which Frank Mills designed.