Morris, George Frederick Bingley

George Frederick Bingley Morris was a bishop of the Church of England in South Africa (CESA). Born in Edinburgh he graduated from Cambridge and joined the Africa Inland Mission, of which he later became field director in the Congo and West Nile Uganda. He was then missionary in Morocco and rector of a parish in southwestern England before consecration by Archbishop William Temple as bishop in North Africa. In 1954 he resigned to become bishop of the CESA which, according to Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffery Fisher, put him “outside the fellowship of the Anglican Communion” that in South Africa recognized only the Church of the Province (CPSA). A godly man who never lost his strong evangelicalism, Morris carried on his ministry despite CSPA hostility and the sometimes unguarded utterances of Dr. Fisher whose successor, A.M. Ramsey, insisted on “reordaining” a CESA clergyman. To ensure the continuance of episcopal ministrations in the CESA, Morris in 1959, acting alone, consecrated the Australian Stephen Bradley who carried on the work after Morris died. Australian bishops in 1984 took the imaginative step of consecrating Dudley Foord for service in the CESA, thus taking a step toward healing a division that had lasted since the latter nineteenth century.

J.D. Douglas

This article was reprinted, with permission from Twentieth-Century Dictionary of Christian Biography, edited by J. D. Douglas (Carlisle, Cumbria, England : Paternoster Press ; Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Books, c1995). All rights reserved.