Stanway, Alfred

Alfred Stanway was an Australian bishop and missionary leader. As a young man he experienced a call to Africa, which led him to offer to serve with the Anglican Church Missionary Society. He trained for ordination at Ridley College, Melbourne, and began work in Kenya in 1937. In 1951 he was consecrated bishop of Central Tanganyika, at that time a diocese that covered only half the country. Under his dynamic leadership the church continued to grow rapidly. He put strong emphasis on giving responsibility to local Christians. African bishops were consecrated and new dioceses created. He adavanced substantially medical and educational work and began to develop a network of Bible schools. His lifelong stress on the value of Christian literature led to the establishment of book shops and the Central Tanganyika Press. When he left Tanzania in 1971 there was an African archbishop, and Stanway himself was succeeded by an African. He was then deputy principal of Ridley College until invited unexpectedly to become president/dean of a new seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to be called Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. From 1975 to 1978 he worked there to build up its spiritual, physical, and academic foundations. He wrote Prayer: A Personal Testimony (1991).

John W. Wilson

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.