John Leonard Wilson

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Leonard Wilson (1897-1970) was an Anglican Bishop. He was Bishop of Singapore from 1941 to 1949 during the time of Japanese occupation, and subsequently Dean of Manchester and Bishop of Birmingham.

Contents 1 Education 2 Service in Singapore 3 Later Career 4 References 5 Further reading

[edit] Education

Wilson was educated at Newcastle Grammar School, St John's School, Leatherhead, Knutsford Training School, The Queen's College, Oxford (shortened degree, Bachelor of Arts in Theology 1922), and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.^[1]

[edit] Service in Singapore

After serving as Dean of Hong Kong, Wilson became Bishop of Singapore in 1941. At the time of the fall of Singapore in February 1942, the Bishop, assisted by Rev. Reginald Keith Sorby Adams of Saint Andrew's School, Singapore and John Hayter, ministered unstintingly to the people of Singapore. Subsequently they were able to continue their ministry for a year, thanks mainly to the help of a Christian Japanese officer Andrew Ogawa.^[2] However the growing popularity of the Cathedral and the use of English was perceived by the Japanese authorities as a threat, and in 1943 the trio were interned in the notorious Changi prison. Another factor was the discovery of some notes by the Bishop on Lawrence of Arabia which raised suspicions of plans to stir up the local population to revolt.^[3] In the prison they worked hard to maintain morale. Then Wilson was one of 57 civilians who were tortured by the Japanese authorities in the "Double Tenth" case, so called because it started with a raid on the Changi internment facility on 10 October 1943. The Japanese were seeking evidence that the internees had assisted in Operation Jaywick, in which Australian and British commandos operating from Australia sank several Japanese warships in Singapore's Keppel Harbour on 26 September 1943. Bishop Wilson was one of those who gave evidence of the nature of the torture to the investigation commission set up by the authorities of the Sime Road Internment Camp following the Japanese surrender in August 1945.^[4] By the end of the war he had made several conversions to Christianity incuding some of the Japanese captors.

[edit] Later Career

From 1949 to 1953, Wilson was Dean of Manchester, and from 1953 to 1969, Bishop of Birmingham. In his time as a bishop, he was frequently called on to give a Christian perspective on issues of peace and war, his wartime experiences giving him a powerful moral platform from which to do so.

In 1966 he gave the address at the memorial service for the wartime General Officer Commanding (Malaya), Arthur Ernest Percival, which was held in St Martin-in-the-Fields. He retired to Yorkshire in 1969, but died of as stoke on the way home after a service at St Paul's Cathedral.

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography J. C. H. Tompkins, ‘Wilson, (John) Leonard (1897–1970)’, rev., first published Sept 2004
• Roy Mckay, John Leonard Wilson: Confessor for the Faith (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1973)
• J. L. Wilson, Only Look on us as Found in Him (Cambridge: Mass: 1961).

Religious titles
Preceded by Ernest William Barnes	Bishop of Birmingham 1953 - 1969	Succeeded by Lawrence Ambrose Brown

v • d • e Bishops of Birmingham Charles Gore  • Henry Russell Wakefield  • Ernest William Barnes  • John Leonard Wilson • Lawrence Ambrose Brown • Hugh Montefiore • Mark Santer  • John Sentamu  • David Urquhart •