Theodore Gibson

[1] Born into a clerical family[a] he was educated at Marlborough and Keble College, Oxford.

As archdeacon, then bishop of a challenging area his Times obituary noted he ...was a good pastor in a difficult and poor diocese which called for the best from a man who had chosen to follow ChristHis episcopate in Kimberley and Kuruman was marked by poverty in the diocese.

Prayer intentions for January 1935 included: "Distress in Kimberley and on the River Diggings…" Similar dedication was shown when he was translated to St John's.

While Cochrane, in his book, The Servants of Power, has written of the church of this era in South Africa as being typified by a "growing interest in apolitical spirituality,"[4] it has been noted that Bishop Gibson tracked political matters closely: hardly a bill went before parliament without his having commented on it.

The 'South African liturgy' – the Prayer Books of 1924 and 1954 – were widely acknowledged as amongst the "most satisfactory" in the Anglican Communion.