Neville Gorton

Neville Vincent Gorton[1] (1 March 1888 – 30 November 1955) was an Anglican cleric who served as the fourth bishop of the restored see of Coventry[2] in the modern era.

[4] Gorton was a career school-master who after taking holy orders spent 20 years at Sedbergh School, during which time he married Ethel Ingledew Daggett, with whom he had two sons (including the production designer Assheton Gorton[5]) and one daughter[6] rising to the rank of housemaster.

He was then appointed head of Blundell's School[7] where he was to remain until the call to face the challenges of a severely bombed diocese.

[9] Gorton himself was a curious mixture of conventional (he passionately opposed the remarriage of divorced people in church) and lateral thinker – his wide experience with boys gave him a very realistic view of “sin”.

[11] Sir Basil Spence, the architect of the new Coventry Cathedral, considered Gorton to be a saint, writing "I have never met such a 'good' man, and one who had no sense of possessiveness whatsoever; he desired nothing except the things of the spirit.