William Pinkney (bishop)

William Pinkney (April 17, 1810 – July 4, 1883) was fifth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. He was born in Annapolis, Maryland and attended St. John's College, Annapolis. He was ordained to the diaconate on April 12, 1835, and to the priesthood by the Right Reverend William Murray Stone.

Rt.Rev. Pinkney was consecrated on October 6, 1870 in the Church of the Epiphany in Washington, D.C. with Presiding Bishop Benjamin Bosworth Smith as principal consecrator, assisted by bishops John Johns of Virginia and Thomas Atkinson of North Carolina. Two years later, Bishop William Rollinson Whittingham, who had convinced Pinkney to accept the rectorship of the Church of the Ascension in Washington before the American Civil War (and who had brought the southern-sympathizing Rev. Pinkney up on charges for failing to say prayers for President Lincoln), appointed him as his assistant.^[1] Pinkney administered the diocese during Whittingham's extended convalescence before succeeding his mentor upon his death in 1879.

Bishop Pinkney died in office in 1883.^[2] He is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, with the grave sculpture financed by his friend, the financier W.W.Corcoran. The Maryland diocesan convention the following year elected William Paret his successor.

References

External links

• The Life of William Pinkney by William Pinkney
• Life of the Right Reverend William Pinkney, D.D., LL.D., Fifth Bishop of Maryland, by Orlando Hutton (1890)