Ronald Owen Hall CMG, MC[1] was an Anglican bishop [2] in the 20th century.[3]
Hall was born on 22 July 1895 [4] and educated at The Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne, Bromsgrove School and Brasenose College, Oxford.[5] He served in the First World War winning the Military Cross and Bar. Ordained in 1925 to Newcastle Cathedral for work with the Student Christian Movement,[6] he later became vicar of St Luke's Newcastle upon Tyne.[7] In 1932 he was appointed Bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong [8][9] and then from 1951 of the smaller Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau, retiring in 1966.[10]
While Bishop of Hong Kong, Hall ordained the first woman priest in the Anglican Communion. The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and of parts of China had made it impossible for Anglican priests to get to neutral Macau, where there were a number of refugee Anglicans with no priest. Li Tim-Oi had already been made a deaconess in Macau by Hall and had been authorized by him and his assistant to give the sacraments to the Anglicans in these extenuating circumstances.[11]
In January 1944, Li Tim-Oi travelled through Japanese-occupied territory to meet with Hall in the small town of Xing Xing, as yet unoccupied by the Japanese, where he regularised her administration of the sacraments by ordaining her as a priest. The Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, William Temple, confided to others his conflicting views: "if we could find any shadow of theological ground for the non-ordination of women I should be immensely comforted, but such arguments as I have heard on that line seem quite desperately futile." [12] However, he felt compelled to take a public stand against it: “I cannot think that in any circumstances whatever an individual Bishop has the right to take such a step which is most certainly contrary to all the laws and precedents of the Church...and I therefore feel obliged to tell you that I do profoundly deplore the action that you took and have to regard it as ultra vires.”[12]
When the war ended in 1945, Li Tim-Oi, to avoid controversy, gave up her licence as a priest, though never renounced her ordination. She was recognised as a priest again in 1971 for the Diocese of Hong Kong,[13] and, in 1983, appointed an honorary (nonstipendiary) assistant priest in Toronto, Canada, where she spent the remainder of her life.
At the provincial synod of the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui in Shanghai in 1947, Hall's tried but failed to get retroactive approval in canon law for Li Tim-Oi's ordination.[1] Present at that synod was Gilbert Baker, woho would become his successor and the bishop who would later, in 1971, ordain Anglicanism's first two women priests legally with the blessing of the Anglican Consultative Council.
In June 1966, the Queen made Hall a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) [14]
Hall died on 22 April 1975.[15] There is a Community Centre named after him in London.[16] He was succeeded by as bishop by Gilbert Baker.
References to Hall can be seen around Hong Kong. The Ming Hua Theological College, for example, reflects Hall's Chinese name, 'Ming Hua'. He was also instrumental in the setting up of the Hong Kong Housing Society.[2]
| Anglican Communion titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| New creation | Bishop of Anglican Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau 1951–1966 |
Succeeded by Gilbert Baker |
| Religious titles | ||
| Preceded by Charles Ridley Duppuy |
Bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong 1932–1951 |
Succeeded by diocese abolished |
|
|||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
