Thomas Stevens (bishop)

[3] He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Magdalene College, Cambridge in May 1901.

[4] He was consecrated a bishop on 17 February 1901, at St Margaret's, Westminster, by Archbishop of Canterbury.

[6] He then held incumbencies at St Luke, Victoria Docks,[7] Saffron Walden and finally (before his elevation to the episcopate) Vicar of St John's, Stratford.

[10] Stevens was a very active Freemason, initiated as a student in 1861 in Cambridge's Isaac Newton University Lodge.

He became Provincial Grand Chaplain for Essex in 1885, and then in 1896 became the joint Grand Chaplain of the United Grand Lodge of England,[11] serving jointly with the Bishop of Llandaff (Richard Lewis), and succeeding the Bishop of Barrow-in-Furness, the Rt Revd Henry Ware.