Edward Talbot (bishop)

Edward Stuart Talbot (19 February 1844 – 30 January 1934) was an Anglican bishop in the Church of England and the first Warden of Keble College, Oxford. He was successively the Bishop of Rochester, the Bishop of Southwark and the Bishop of Winchester.

When the First World War started in August, 1914, it was a surprise to many including Bishop Talbot who, in January, 1914, had written, ‘No year has opened with greater anxieties. It is true, thank God, that the black cloud which at the opening of 1912 hung over our relations with Germany, threatening war, has greatly lightened and dispersed.’ He was in no doubt in August,1914, that it would be an horrific war. ‘It is a sober truth that in its scale, in the numbers whom it will touch, in the amount of suffering which it may cause, there has been nothing like it in the history of Europe.’ He quoted the support given to Britain ‘by our Colonies, by the main body of American opinion, and by public feeling in Italy, all of them in a degree independent witnesses’, as indicative of the righteousness of the British cause fighting ‘for freedom’. He was very busy during the War, attending various meetings, encouraging women to take on War work, creating a Roll of Honour of clergy and clergy families who had volunteered for the Forces and chairing an ‘Enquiry into Religion in the Army’. He himself was a strong preacher with a resonant voice and, at well over six feet in height, he looked and sounded like an ideal bishop.

Talbot's two elder brothers went to France in August,1914, as Temporary Chaplains to the Forces (TCF). Both were awarded the Military Cross. His youngest son, Gilbert, was killed in action. ‘It has pleased God that Gilbert should be taken....’, he remarked. Provided by Wikipedia