Waite Hockin Stirling
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Waite Hockin Stirling was a missionary with the Patagonian Missionary Society and the first Anglican Bishop of the Falkland Islands.
After a disastrous beginning for the Patagonian Missionary Society, when Captain Allen Gardiner and his companions died of starvation in 1851 in Spanish Harbour and a group of missionaries were massacred at Woolai, Naverin Island, in 1859, Stirling went to Keppel Island as Mission Superintendent and managed to re-establish the work of the mission.
Whilst in isolation in Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego, as "God's Lonely Sentinel" as Stirling called himself, he was summoned to London to be consecrated with the title "Bishop of the Falkland Islands", in keeping with contemporary practice to name overseas bishoprics after one of Her Majesty's possessions. Seven consular chaplaincies in South America and several private company chaplains were placed under his jurisdiction. He spent his first few years establishing his authority over recalcitrant clergy and congregations who resented this Episcopal "upstart" and still thought they owed allegiance to the Bishop of London, who was responsible for oversight of overseas Colonial and Consular Chaplaincies.
On January 14th, 1872, in the Exchange Building in Port Stanley Bishop Stirling was assigned his "Throne and Episcopal Chair" by the Colonial Chaplain, the Reverend Charles Bull. The surroundings hardly resembled a cathedral, and Bishop Stirling refused to consecrate "half a commercial building", yet Holy Trinity became the Mother Church of a vast diocese while for reasons of communication, Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, remained the administrative centre, where St. John's Church became a "pro-Cathedral" and later a full Cathedral. After a wall of the Exchange Building was destroyed in 1886, the present very beautiful Stanley Cathedral was built, and consecrated in 1892.
The Colonial Chaplain in 1892, the Reverend Lowther Brandon, became Dean and the Constitution provided for four Honorary Canons. The last Honorary Canon to be appointed in 1968 was the Reverend Eric Wilcockson, the Anglican Chaplain in Rio de Janeiro.
Bishop Stirling resigned in 1900 to become a Canon and Assistant Bishop at Wells Cathedral, for another 20 years, finally retiring at the age of 91.
