Ian Shevill

Ian Wotton Allnutt Shevill, AO (11 May 1917 – 3 November 1988) was an Australian Anglican bishop in the second half of the 20th century.

Early life and education

Ian Shevill was educated at Scot's College, Sydney and Sydney University, then Moore Theological College and the Australian College of Theology.

Ordained ministry

Shevill was ordained in 1941 and his first position was as a curate of St Paul's Burwood, New South Wales. From 1948 to 1953 he worked for the Society for the Propagation of Gospel.

In 1953, he was ordained to the episcopate as Bishop of North Queensland, a post he held for 17 years. He was enthroned on 23 April 1953 in the St James' Cathedral, Townsville. Shevill was nicknamed 'the boy bishop' as he was only 34 when he became bishop of North Queensland, the world's youngest Anglican Bishop.

In 1970, Shevill's wife died and he became Secretary of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in London. In 1973 he returned to Australia and was enthroned as Bishop of Newcastle on 6 August 1973.

Shevill retired in 1977 following a stroke and died on 3 November 1988. He opened Bible House, Townsville, on 7 November 1964 with Canon H.M. Arrowsmith and Preston Walker of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

Author

Shevill was an author, both during his work and after his retirement. Amongst others he wrote New Dawn in Papua (1946); Pacific Conquest (1948); God’s World at Prayer (1951); Orthodox and other Eastern Churches in Australia (1964); Going it with God (1969); One Man’s Meditations (1982); O, My God (1982); Between Two Sees (1988) and an autobiography, Half Time (1966) while bishop in Townsville

Personal life

Shevill married June Stephenson, an English missionary he had met in New Guinea, in 1959; she died in 1970. He married again in 1974 to Margaret Ann Brabazon at Bishopscourt Chapel in Darling Point, Sydney.

The then Bishop of Newcastle, Greg Thompson, reported in 2015 that he had been sexually abused by Shevill as a young man when he was 19 and interested in the priesthood.