Dean of Canterbury

The Dean of Canterbury is the head of the Chapter of the Cathedral of Christ Church, Canterbury, England. The current office of dean originated after the English Reformation, although Deans had also existed before this time; its immediate precursor office was the prior of the cathedral-monastery.[1] The current Dean is Robert Willis, who was appointed in 2001 and is the 39th Dean since the Reformation, though the position of Dean and Prior as the religious head of the community is almost identical so the line is unbroken back to the time of the foundation of the community by Saint Augustine in AD 597.

Inscribed panels in Canterbury Cathedral, listing the Deans of Canterbury

List of deans

820–1080

Version on show in the Cathedral (west end) Ceolnoth 820 Aegelwyn 830 Alfric Kensyn Maurice Aelfwyn 930 Alsine 935 Aelfwyn II 951 Athelsine Aegelnoth 984 (Æthelnoth, later Archbishop of Canterbury) Egelric 1020 Goderic 1058

Victoria County History, 1926 Cuba, occurs 798[2] Beornheard, occurs 805 Heahfrith, occurs 813 Ceolnoth, resigned 833 Æthelwine, occurs c. 860 Eadmund, occurs c.871 Æthelnoth, resigned 1020 Godric, occurs 1020, 1023 Æthelric, resigned 1058 Ælfric Ælfsige Ælfwine Ælfwine Kynsige Maurice

Priors of Canterbury

About a century after becoming a monastic foundation late in the 10th century, the Cathedral started to be headed by a prior rather than a dean. It would next have a dean after the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Post-Reformation Deans

Early modern 1541–1567 Nicholas Wotton (the first dean; simultaneously Dean of York) 1567–1584 Thomas Godwin 1584–1597 Richard Rogers 1597–1615 Thomas Nevile 1615–1619 Charles Fotherby 1619–1625 John Boys 1625–1643 Isaac Bargrave 1643 George Aglionby 1643–1672 Thomas Turner 1672–1689 John Tillotson 1689–1691 John Sharp (afterwards Archbishop of York, 1691) 1691–1704 George Hooper 1704–1728 George Stanhope 1728–1733 Elias Sydall 1734–1760 John Lynch 1760–1766 William Freind 1766–1770 John Potter 1770–1771 Brownlow North 1771–1775 John Moore 1775–1781 The Hon James Cornwallis 1781–1790 George Horne 1790–1792 William Buller 1793–1797 Folliott Cornewall

Late modern 1797–1809 Thomas Powys 1809–1825 Gerrard Andrewes 1825–1827 Hugh Percy 1827–1845 Richard Bagot 1845–1857 William Lyall 1857–1871 Henry Alford 1871–1895 Robert Payne Smith 1895–1903 Frederic Farrar 1903–1924 Henry Wace 1924–1929 George Bell 1929–1931 Dick Sheppard 1931–1963 Hewlett Johnson 1963–1976 Ian White-Thomson 1976–1986 Victor de Waal 1986–2000 John Simpson 2000–present Robert Willis

References

1. A full list of the priors and Deans and Canterbury is given in A History of Canterbury Cathedral, ed. P. Collinson, N. Ramsay, M. Sparks. (OUP 1995, revised edition 2002), page 565.
2. Houses of Benedictine monks: The cathedral priory of the Holy Trinity or Christ Church, Canterbury, A History of the County of Kent: Volume 2 (1926), pp. 113–121. accessed: 08 September 2009.

External links

• Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541–1857: volume 3