Edward Feild
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Bishop Edward Feild (1801 – 1876) educator and second Bishop of Newfoundland, born Worcester, England. Educated Rugby, Wadham College and Queen's College, Oxford, England.
Before entering the Church of England priesthood Feild was a mathematician by academic training. As an Oxford undergraduate from 1823 to 1825 he attended lectures given by the Regius Professor of Divinity, which reputedly influenced the formation of Feild's High Church sympathies. Following his graduation in 1825, Feild tried unsuccessfully to become a Fellow of Oriel College, having lost the position to Hurrell Froude and Robert Isaac Wilberforce. So fierce was the competition, in fact, that one of Oriel's fellows commemorated the event in Greek verse.
Spurred in part by his High Church leanings and his professed interest in divinity, and in part by his desire for the advancement thwarted by his failure to obtain the Oriel Fellowship, Feild chose a career in the Church. He was ordained a deacon in 1826, and a priest in 1827 by the Bishop of Oxford.
The present Cathedral at St. John's, Newfoundland was begun in 1847 by The Right Reverend Edward Feild. Bishop Feild commissioned plans from the leading Gothic Revival architect George Gilbert Scott.
Before Bishop Feild arrived in St. John's to assume the Diocese of Newfoundland, he became aware of the lack of quality schools on the island at that time. Almost immediately after arriving in 1844, he set up a school for boys. Although it's not the same school that now bears his name on Bond Street, the creation of this school marks the beginning of Bishop Feild College in Newfoundland. Because of its long and prestigious history, Bishop Feild College can boast of an impressive list of alumni. This list includes one governor, two lieutenant-governors, one premier, two federal cabinet ministers, five senators, four bishops, 15 judges, four mayors and 15 Rhodes scholars. Among the more famous alumni are Joey Smallwood, John Crosbie, NTV president Geoff Sterling and CBC sports broadcaster Bob Cole. Bishop Feild College was recognised as a Registered Heritage Structure by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador in June 1994.
Feild also reorganized the Theological Institute that had been founded in 1841 by his predecessor, Bishop Aubrey Spencer, renaming it 'Queen's College,' with a fourfold intent - to honour Queen Victoria; to recognize all her favours to Newfoundland; after Feild's own college at Oxford; and in imitation of King's College in Windsor, Nova Scotia.
In 1864, Feild's appeal for clergy brought James Butler Knill Kelly to Newfoundland. The two, whose duties included travel to Bermuda (then a part of the Newfoundland diocese), were almost killed in 1871 when their ship, The Star, was wrecked.
In 1867, Kelly was made coadjutor bishop (assistant bishop with the right of succession). It was in that same year that Feild married Sophie Mountain, the widow of the Rev. Jacob G. Mountain, grandson of the first bishop of Quebec, and nephew of the second. Sophie's marriage to Feild prompted the joke that she had 'gone down from the Mountains to marry in the Feilds.' In his next charge to the clergy of the diocese, Feild quipped that he had in one year gotten a coadjutor and a coadjutrix. Kelly briefly replaced Feild as bishop after Field's death five years later.
